CANADA FOLLOW-UP RESPONSE TO G8 CASH COURIER

UNCLAS OTTAWA 000339 SIPDIS SENSITIVE SIPDIS STATE FOR S/CT (RANGASWAMY AND ANDERSON) E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: CA KCRM KJUS OTRA PTER SNAR SUBJECT: CANADA FOLLOW-UP RESPONSE TO G8 CASH COURIER INITIATIVE REF: A. OTTAWA 315 ¶B. STATE 18273 Sensitive but unclassified 1.(sbu) in a follow-up response to ref b nonpaper on the G8 Cash Courier Initiative, Mark Moher, Senior Coordinator for International Crime and Terrorism at the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, emailed Econcouns on March 5. Text of the message follows below: ¶2. (sbu) Begin text of message: "As I noted to you, it is Canada's intention to assist the United States in finding workable solutions to facilitate U.S. desire to advance the issue of cash couriers. This was demonstrated by the Canadian Delegation in the 2007 Roma/Lyon meetings in Berlin and again in February 2008 in Tokyo. Most recently we also played a constructive role in negotiations of the annual declaration for the OAS Inter-American Committee Against Terrorism, where U.S. also sought to include reference to cash-couriers. "That being said, there seem to be several junctures where our experts and analysts find some difficulties in reconciling their findings and experiences with some U.S. assertions. For example, in the recent OAS/CICTE declaration, the U.S. had proposed language which referred to an "increasing use of bulk cash smuggling and illicit cash couriers to finance terrorist activities." Our experts find it difficult to endorse statements such as these without having the benefit of extensive analysis or ready access to evidence which would support the same. In a similar vein, this makes it difficult for us to endorse without qualification the contention outlined in the draft G8 Threat Assessment that 'an increasing number of terrorist groups are likely to make more frequent use of cash couriers.' "As I indicated, Canada remains supportive of U.S. efforts. We would benefit in this respect from any evidence U.S. authorities could share with our experts on this issue. Moreover, we could be more helpful to your efforts provided we had a better understanding of U.S. objectives (i.e. policy objectives; programme objectives; focus of international action; etc.) Finally, we wish to see the FATF as primarily engaged in these matters. With our resources, we can only make focussed contributions and the FATF remains our priority mechanism in this field." End message text. Visit Canada,s Economy and Environment Forum at http://www.intelink.gov/communities/state/can ada WILKINS