Keith Arnold has resigned as director of the Financial Intelligence Unit. Arnold had been under pressure for months after he accepted to act as the government appointed director and consequently chairman of BTL.
The conflict came to light when as Chairman, Arnold fired Financial Controller and one-time acting CEO Gaspar Aguilar because he lost $7.4 million changing money on the parallel market. As has been shown in many documents obtained by 7NEWS, Aguilar appeared at all times to have been acting on the board's directive when he changed those monies, possibly implicating BTL in laundering tens of millions of U.S. dollars between 2001 and 2005.
It's a case of possible laundering so large that, by all appearances, the Financial Intelligence Unit would have had to investigate, but how could it, when its director was acting as Chairman of BTL, the very company that should be investigated? The Association of Concerned Belizeans pointed out the conflict to the Governor General in a letter two weeks ago.
Well, we don't know what all happened since then, but yesterday Arnold wrote the Governor General saying that his legal advisors had advised him to resign as director of the FIU. Karim Berges of the Association of Concerned Belizeans today said it encouraging, but it is only a start.
Karim Berges, ACB President
"I do believe its pressure. Directly from the ACB? It is possible so but nevertheless its public pressure and people pressure."
Jules Vasquez,
Do you see it as a significant victory?
Karim Berges,
"A victory, no. The reason is the victory is not to have Keith Arnold just resign. He is a mere obstacle that is in place that we want to recognize and the victory would be when we get a full investigation and indictment and prosecution from there on, that would be the victory, if you want to say victory. But we don't want to say victory, we're just a mere watchdog for our political system."
Jules Vasquez,
Do you think the FIU should investigate BTL?
Karim Berges,
"Definitely. A full investigation should take place."
Jules Vasquez,
Under what pretext?
Karim Berges,
"Money laundering."
Jules Vasquez,
Do you think that money laundering was a occurring at BTL?
Karim Berges,
"The evidence points to it. There's huge amounts of transactions that took place and there's no telling where those funds came from. Like I said, the director who is Keith Arnold, was a mere obstacle to the justice at hand and we had to take care or that or put pressure to take care of that, and now we want a full investigation. So I guess this is our first step."
As Chairman of BTL's Board of Directors, Arnold collects a salary of at least $60,000 a year. We do not know what is the practice now, but under Prosser's regime, 7NEWS has seen documents which show that BTL directors were paid in U.S. dollars.
