Legal workers must report ‘suspicious’ dealings they might encounter
Lawyers, notaries and legal consultants in Cuba are obligated to report to the authorities any “suspicious operations” they encounter in the course of their work, such as money laundering (“the bleaching of capital”), says a new ruling issued by the Ministry of Justice.
Resolution No. 175, published Saturday (Aug. 16) in the Official Gazette No. 36, says that those functionaries have an “obligation” to report such transactions to the Central Bank’s Directorate for the Investigation of Financial Operations.
Those legal workers “might know of possible suspicious operations related to the introduction in the Cuban market of illicit assets, for the purpose of being utilized in terrorist activities or money-laundering operations,” the resolution says.
Any suspicious transaction that may be “presumed to involve money laundering, the funding of terrorism, the proliferation of weapons, and other [activities] of similar seriousness” must be reported, the document says. Lawyer/client confidentiality is not binding in such cases, the ruling seems to indicate.
The resolution appears to be part of the government’s war on corruption, which has targeted state-run companies and joint enterprises funded with foreign money.
In a speech during the First Communist Party Conference in January 2012, President Raúl Castro said that corruption is “one of the principal enemies of the Revolution, much more harmful than the multimillion-dollar subversive and meddlesome program of the United States government and its allies inside and outside this country.”
“Our country can win the battle against corruption,” Castro went on, “slowing it down at first and later liquidating it without any contemplation. We have warned that, within the framework of the law, we shall be implacable with the phenomenon of corruption.”
The president has made that argument frequently since then.
Although the resolution does not specifically mention foreign aid to opposition groups — which the government describes as “counter-revolutionary” — it could also target organizations and individuals attempting “regime change” with foreign funding.
