Some Thoughts on Commodity Controls
By Douglas Farah
Well, FinCEN has finally put out proposed regulations on people dealing in precious metals and precious stones, a tacit admission at least that diamonds and gold are problems in the terror finance world. The regulations are very late, and were called for under the Patriot Act. But they are happening nontheless. It remains to be seen whether regulation will have any impact, or whether reporting requirements will simply add another layer of paperwork in a system where most of the paperwork is useless, unread and unused. Since 9-11, with the fear that they may be blamed for something later, banks have been filing huge amounts of suspicious activity reports and other papers, to show they warned the feds if funding for another set of attacks passed through their institution. The problem is, I am told, that the flood of paper is so huge that it is largely meaningless, because there are not the time, personnel and technical ability to process the information.
If the diamond and precious metal reporting requirements lead to the same situation, then it will be a hollow bureaucratic victory. Rather than regulation, I have been preaching increased intelligence and voluntary cooperation from the different industries. (To read more, go here.)
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