MIAMI - The Obama Administration has reportedly warned that it will end all money transfers from the US to Haiti in November, 2016, unless certain unspecified "corrective measures" are taken.

Many Haitians have, for decades, been largely supported by remittances sent by expatriates working in America to their needy families in Haiti, but that route is also used to repatriate the proceeds of narcotics crime, and apparently the United States has lost patience with the Haitian financial industry's non-existent anti-money laundering and combating the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) efforts.

Most North American compliance officers are ill-informed about the thriving Venezuela-to-Haiti-to USA drug trafficking route, believing Haiti to be an extremely poor country and not understanding its key role in drug smuggling and money laundering operations.

The level of corruption in Haiti is considered by many experts to be the highest in the Western Hemisphere, and the participants have a vested interest in keeping their financial structure deaf, dumb and blind regarding protection from financial crime, so unless the United States backs off, Haitians living in America could lose a large part of the resources that they depend upon to sustain their unemployed relatives at home.

By Kenneth Rijock

Kenneth Rijock is a banking lawyer turned-career money launderer (10 years), turned-compliance officer specialising in enhanced due diligence, and a financial crime consultant who publishes a Financial Crime Blog. The Laundry Man, his autobiography, was published in the UK on 5 July 2012.