Nov 04 - Picardo's Scathing Response to MP's Gibraltar Money Laundering Claim
In a Commons session last Friday Labour political Keith Vaz suggested that Gibraltar was used as an offshore site through which drug money was laundered. In a scornful response to this claim, Chief Minister Fabian Picardo’s letter to the MP, who attended the Gibraltar Government’s reception at the Labour Party Conference in September, noted that he is ‘outraged at the untrue way in which [he] specifically linked Gibraltar with the introduction of the proceeds of drug trafficking into the financial system’.
Within his letter Mr. Picardo insisted that his suggestion was ‘ill informed’, and had caused him, the Government and the people of Gibraltar great distress. The Chief Minister goes on to outline Gibraltar’s ‘robust stance on anti money laundering, and other aspects of international cooperation’, stating that Gibraltar’s legislation, systems and administrative practices have been independently tested by independent reviews from the Financial Action Task Force, the international Monetary Fund and others, and have found to have a ‘robust arsenal not only just in place but crucially also in practice’. Mr. Picardo furthest touched upon the recent ‘glowing review’ Gibraltar received from the OECD on its record exchange of information.
Mr. Picardo concludes his written communication by requesting that any evidence Mr. Vaz may have to support his claim should be submitted to the RGP. He further requests that the parliamentarian corrects the statements he made ‘as soon and as publically as possible’.
The letter was sent not only to Mr. Vaz, but also to the Prime Minister, Chancellor of the Exchequer, Minister for Europe, Speaker of the House of Commons, Deputy Speaker of the House of Commons and Gibraltar’s Government representative in the UK.
