The Anti-Corruption Commission has questioned why a six-figure confiscation order against Canover Watson has not been enforced, suggesting the lack of follow-through is making Cayman look ‘incompetent’.
Prosecutors have confirmed that almost a decade after his conviction, Watson has yet to repay any of the money he stole from government in the CarePay scandal, despite an order from the court and multiple efforts by prosecutors to recover the funds. Meanwhile, efforts to recover funds from Watson in a separate regional football fraud have stalled in the courts.
The Anti-Corruption Commission’s Charles Jennings has described the failure to obtain and enforce confiscation orders as “unacceptable” and warned that continued inaction risks harming the reputation of the Cayman Islands.
The conviction of Watson on money laundering and fraud charges in 2023 was considered pivotal to the island getting off the ‘grey list’ of jurisdictions not doing their part in the global fight against dirty money.
In a statement in the commission’s 2024-25 annual report, Jennings, who was chairman of the commission during the period covered in the report, said the pursuit of ill-gotten assets was an equally important aspect of such prosecutions.
“While convictions and sentences are, of course, vital parts of the prosecutorial process, ancillary matters such as forfeiture of assets are of equal importance, not least to demonstrate the jurisdiction’s determination to apply the full force of the law against defendants when they (assets) are acquired from corruption,” he wrote.
Watson is currently serving a seven-year sentence after being convicted in 2022 of sending false invoices for US$1.54 million to regional football confederation CONCACAF and then laundering the stolen funds through the Cayman Islands Football Association. He was earlier convicted of working with others to scam the Cayman Islands government out of more than $5 million in the CarePay hospital swipe-card fraud.
Watson was ordered to pay the government US$1.12 million in 2018 following his conviction two years earlier in the Carepay case.
The missive from the Anti-Corruption Commission suggests he was also subject to a confiscation order in the separate football-related fraud.
Jennings’ warning echoes similar concerns expressed by his predecessor in the role, Adrian ‘Gus’ Pope.
Jennings wrote, “We both pointed out that while Mr. Watson was sentenced to a custodial sentence, the confiscation aspect of his case remained outstanding, as did a previous confiscation order in what became known as the ‘CarePay’ case. I regret to report that neither of those confiscation orders has yet been enforced, even (in the case of CarePay) after seven years.”
He went on to urge the “prosecutorial and judicial authorities” to pursue these payments with the “same expedition as they did the substantive prosecution”.
The report adds, “Bluntly put, it is unacceptable that this has still not been done after seven years … Frankly, in the absence of good reason for these delays, they make the jurisdiction and its judicial and enforcement processes appear incompetent.”
Simon Davis, the director of public prosecutions, said efforts to recover stolen funds from Watson had been “long and protracted”. He said prosecutors had been to court numerous times in an effort to enforce the court’s 2018 confiscation order of CI$925,995.58 and had even recommended additional jail time for Watson because of his failure to comply.
“The prosecution made applications to activate the default sentence of six months imprisonment due to non-payment of the order. The court has declined to activate the default sentence,” he said.
Davis said separate proceedings to confiscate assets in relation to Watson’s conviction in the CONCACAF case were derailed by Watson’s appeal against conviction and sentence, which concluded largely unsuccessfully earlier this year.
Davis added, “Since then, it is understood that the defence for Watson are not in funds and/or have no legal aid to represent Watson. Plainly, these are matters which need to be addressed before the confiscation proceedings can be brought to a conclusion.”
The Compass also sought comment from the judiciary, but received no response over the past week.
Pope, in his chairman’s statement in the 2023 report, outlined the importance of the Watson conviction, which he said was the result of a seven-year investigation by Anti-Corruption Commission officers across multiple countries, including Pakistan, Switzerland, Germany, Panama and the United States.
He wrote, “It is important to note that the actions of the ACC can have a much broader significance for the Cayman Islands than simply investigating local corruption for a domestic audience.
“In particular, the ACC continues to take an important role within the Cayman Islands’ actions aimed at the removal of the Cayman Islands from the Financial Action Task Force ‘Grey List’ and its broader anti-money laundering strategy.
“The ACC convictions of Watson and [Bruce] Blake represent significant evidence of the Cayman Islands’ determination to prosecute international money laundering and the case has featured prominently in discussions with the FATF ‘Joint Group’ which continues to evaluate the Cayman Islands.”
With a new FATF evaluation approaching, Jennings argues that the hard work is now being undermined by the failure to successfully pursue the assets in this case.
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“…making Cayman look ‘incompetent’.” Clearly this is a public process matter. Cayman’s public agencies and processes making Cayman look incompetent. You think??