“The true value of this conference will become apparent after the delegates have departed,” Prime Minister Mark Phillips told the room in Georgetown. It was a blunt way to open a meeting that Guyana had waited years to host.
The 27th INTERPOL Americas Regional Conference met on September 23 and 24 at the Arthur Chung Conference Centre, the first time the gathering had been held in the country. Guyana’s Department of Public Information put attendance at approximately 50 officials from 37 countries. The agenda ran through transnational organised crime, illicit financial flows and the tracking, tracing and recovery of criminal assets.
A crossroads for crime
Phillips, who was performing the functions of President, argued that Guyana’s position between South America and the Caribbean, with land borders and Atlantic waters, makes it a natural point of discussion for cross-border crime. Criminal groups, he said, exploit ports, waterways, financial systems and gaps between national laws, often planning and financing operations in several jurisdictions at once.
“Once an investigation crosses a national boundary, any delay can shift the advantage to the offender,” he said.
He pointed to Operation Guyana Shield, run in December 2025 with authorities from Brazil, French Guiana, Guyana and Suriname against illegal gold mining and its ties to organised crime. Over 24,500 checks produced 198 arrests and the seizure of criminal assets and materials used in illegal operations. Even so, he said, such cases also “reveal where the system remains vulnerable.”
Home Affairs Minister Oneidge Walrond said partnership “must be an operational reality,” not just a diplomatic principle. She told delegates that budgets between 2020 and 2026 allocated approximately $467 billion to public safety and security, with $100 billion set aside for the sector in 2026.
What the delegates adopted
The conference adopted recommendations aimed at tighter cooperation between law enforcement, financial intelligence units, asset recovery offices and judicial authorities. INTERPOL Secretary General Valdecy Urquiza, in his address, drew attention to the growing links between drug trafficking and illicit mining, and said criminal organisations are spreading their activities across several illegal markets.
Follow the money, at home
A week later, Attorney General Anil Nandlall told Kaieteur News that the issue featured prominently at the conference, and that law enforcement would now intensify efforts to trace and seize bank accounts, property and other assets linked to crime. The new approach, he said, is to “follow the money.”
He expects the courts to feel it. Judges and magistrates, Nandlall said, should expect repeated applications for freezing orders on bank accounts, detention orders on properties and forfeiture orders. Prosecutors are being trained to present financial and forensic evidence, and a new AML/CFT bill now being drafted places great emphasis on forfeiture of assets and proceeds of crime.
Nandlall said the work will need the police, the Customs Anti-Narcotics Unit, the Guyana Revenue Authority, the Financial Intelligence Unit, the Special Organised Crime Unit and the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission pulling together. Criminal groups are using technology and new financial systems to hide and move their proceeds, he said, so investigators must match that sophistication. No single agency or country can carry the fight alone, in his view.
Sources
- Govt. moves to target bank accounts, assets linked to criminals – Attorney General – Kaieteur News
- Guyana calls for stronger regional action as INTERPOL Americas Conference gets underway – Department of Public Information, Guyana
