SXM Government” and ties to “Money Laundering” de Volkskrant.
There is much possible on St. Maarten when you are in money and the island wants to keep it for now. ' I think that we do not even have to spend half of the criminal money. '
The doors are open, the man of the guard makes a very relaxed impression. In the Casino Royale, the largest casino of St. Maarten, every adult visitor is welcome – from Lady in gala dress to unshaven tourist in short holiday pants. After all, the dollar bills are increasing.
Identify? Register? In The Netherlands It is obligatory for a while. Because if the casino knows who has it as a guest, it can also better monitor who the people are who come to launder black money. Not that it often occurred, in the Netherlands, but it did happen. In St. Maarten, an autonomous country within the Kingdom, the obligation does not apply.
Time to gamble then. In September 2017, the Casino Royale received a couple of huge booming from Hurricane Irma, but turned back in all its glitter and glory at the end of last year. There are hundreds of slot machines (the slots that were formerly called ' one-armed bandits ') and more than Twenty tables for blackjack and roulette. Right on the side, by a low glass wall separated, is the special poker room.
Around ten o'clock on a weekday evening it's not really a storm, but it is still pleasantly busy. A cheerful tourist chooses a huge slot machine called ' China Mystery '; Six serious Chinese people in the casino are dealing with the card game. Smoking inside, at the playing table, is no problem. In the roulette game a man gets a lot of profit chips. ' I love You, baby ', he entrusts delighted the female croupier. ' I love you too ', she replied.
Sint Maarten has twelve casinos with an official license, on a population of approximately 40 thousand people and possibly some 30 000 illegal residents, plus of course the nearly two million visitors who receive the Caribbean island annually. Some gambling houses have a reputation as a money laundering centre, albeit not so much for the criminal money of customers, but precisely for the owners and their sometimes rather obscure contacts.
This type of money laundering is possible because there is far too little visibility on the turnover of the casinos and the origin of the money that comes in. Then owners can pass on a fictitious, much higher turnover than they have realized and pay tax on this. The money left over can be placed in a bank account. With which black cash has become neat white money. And what works in casinos, also works in other companies, such as restaurants, lottery shops, brokerages, or firms for car rental.
By the way, ' Sin Maarten ' (as the island sometimes posters itself by analogy of ' Sin City ' Las Vegas) is still a bit of a thing to do. ' I think we don't even get the money out of the criminals ', says Ligia Stella, the expert and experienced industry standard woman who gives guidance to the so-called MOT, the hotline for unusual transactions. Tax evasion is still a considerable problem.
Take the number of financial transactions that may be in the air. About 2017 and 2018, the MOTH came to a total of 53 thousand ' unusual ' transactions, with an equivalent of 16.6 billion dollars. Converted is that amount about seven times higher than the gross national Product of St. Maarten, although the transactions are sometimes ' cumulative ', which means that the same money transfer is reported by several involved. The number of ' suspicious ' financial transactions was 1,700 in that period, with a total value of 163 million dollars.
Godfather
Also a spokesperson of the Public Prosecutor's Office (OM) in St. Maarten calls the Caribbean island ' attractive for criminal gangs who launder money '. The legislation to combat this is still inadequate. Whoever looks at the overall picture of the crime in St. Maarten, says the spokesperson, sees ' a relatively high concentration of money laundering '. It works on the island closely together with the hotline unusual transactions to combat money laundering.
What is striking is the strong ties that often exist in Sint Maarten between local politicians and international businessmen. An example, among the necessary other, is Franklin Meyers, a member of Parliament for the party that is currently the government of the island. His brother is associated with the
' adult entertainment ' in St. Maarten, or prostitution. And according to two reliable sources, Meyers did
not come up with a screening for the premiership, because he had rented out a casino license he had with his brother to Francesco Corallo, the originally Italian boss in the Gambling maffia with good
Contacts in Curaçao politics. In both businessmen and politicians, large sums in cash often play a major role.
A clear example of this is Theo Heyliger, the ' Godfather ' of St. Martin's politics. In February this year, when he was a Member of Parliament on the island, he was arrested. Heyliger is not only suspicious of the bribe of a fellow politician, but also of the adoption by a Dutch building contractors. A former MP, Patrick Illidge, was suspected of accepting bribes from a brothel holder. An old minister, Christophe Emmanuel, would have given the advice of his department to eight people over ten thousand square metres of land in leasehold. MPs Chanel Brownbill and Frans Richardson have been mentioned in judicial investigations to a total of about three million euros in fraud and corruption in the port of St. Maarten.
' No more bets, please ', says the croupier at the roulette table, with a defused-blessing movement of her left arm. ' No more bets – rien ne va plus. ' But at St. Maarten it only starts.
