Terrorism financing came into limelight after the events of terrorism on 9/11. The US passed the USA PATRIOT Act to, among other reasons, attempt thwarting the financing of terrorism (CFT) and anti-money laundering (AML) making sure these were given some sort of adequate focus by US financial institutions. The act also had extraterritorial impact and non-US banks having correspondent banking accounts or doing business with US banks had to upgrade their AML/CFT processes.
Initially the focus of CFT efforts was on non-profit organisations, unregistered money services businessess (MSBs) (including so called underground banking or ‘Hawalas’) and the criminalisation of the act itself. The Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering (FATF) made nine special recommendations for CFT (first eight then a year later added a ninth). These nine recommendations have become the global standard for CFT and their effectiveness is assessed almost always in conjunction with AML.[1]
The FATF Blacklist (the NCCT list) mechanism was used to coerce countries to bring about change.
Contents |
Often linked in legislation and regulation, terrorism financing and money laundering are conceptual opposites. Money laundering is the process where cash raised from criminal activities is made to look legitimate for re-integration into the financial system, whereas terrorism financing cares little about the source of the funds, but it is what the funds are to be used for that defines its scope.
An in-depth study of the symbiotic relationship between organized crime and terrorist organizations detected within the United States of America and other areas of the world referre d to as crime-terror nexus points has been published in the forensic literature.[2][3][4][5][6][7] The Perri, Lichtenwald and MacKenzie article emphasizes the importance of multi-agency working groups and the tools that can be used to identify, infiltrate, and dismantle organizations operating along the crime-terror nexus points.
Terrorists use low value but high volume fraud activity to fund their operations. Paramilitary groups in Northern Ireland are using legitimate businesses such as hotels, pubs and taxi operators to launder money and fund political activities. Even beyond Ireland, terrorists are buying out/controlling front-end businesses especially cash-intensive businesses including in some cases money services businesses to move monies. Bulk cash smuggling and placement through cash-intensive businesses is one typology. They are now also moving monies through the new online payment systems. They also use trade linked schemes to launder monies. Nonetheless, the older systems have not given way. Terrorists also continue to move monies through MSBs/Hawalas, and through international ATM transactions. Charities also continue to be used in countries where controls are not so stringent.
Operation Green Quest was the US multi-agency task force set up in October 2001 to combat terrorism financing and had developed a checklist of suspicious activities. The following patterns of activity indicate collection and movement of funds that could be associated with terrorism financing:
It would be difficult to determine by the activity alone whether the particular act was related to terrorism or to organized crime. For this reason, these activities must be examined in context with other factors in order to determine a terrorism financing connection. Simple transactions can be found to be suspect and money laundering derived from terrorism will typically involve instances in which simple operations had been performed (retail foreign exchange operations, international transfer of funds) revealing links with other countries including FATF blacklisted countries. Some of the customers may have police records, particularly for trafficking in narcotics and weapons and may be linked with foreign terrorist groups. The funds may have moved through a state sponsor of terrorism or a country where there is a terrorism problem. A link with a Politically Exposed Person (PEP) may ultimately link up to a terrorism financing transaction. A charity may be a link in the transaction. Accounts (especially student) that only receive periodic deposits withdrawn via ATM over two months and are dormant at other periods could indicate that they are becoming active to prepare for an attack.
The Operation Green Quest raids led to the convictions of two people, including Abdurahman Alamoudi, who worked for the SAAR Foundation. Alamoudi admitted that he plotted with Libya to assassinate the Saudi ruler and was sentenced to 23 years in jail.[8][9][10]
In addition to normal AML controls, banks must focus on the CFT angle with renewed vigor and knowledge derived from the extensive databank of case studies now available. Banks must focus on not just name matching with sanctions databases but also with other know your customer (KYC) high-risk databases of good third party vendors. They must use technologies like link analysis to establish second and third level links that identify transactions as potentially suspicious from a CFT perspective. Focus on preventing identity theft is an integral part of any CFT program. Detection rules designed to capture the suspicious activity list given above, should be evaluated. Controls out of the transaction monitoring process, for example, account openings by groups of individuals, are also important to watch for. Any bank that is used for terrorism financing will suffer tremendous reputational damage and also a real business impact in terms of share price and expensive fines. To safeguard against this, financial institutions purchase anti-money laundering software from companies such as Lexis Nexis and C6 along with databases of high risk individuals and organizations developed by companies such as WorldCompliance and C6.
In July 2010, Germany has outlawed the Internationale Humanitäre Hilfsorganisation (IHH), saying it has used donations to support projects in Gaza that are related to Hamas, which is considered by the European Union to be a terrorist organization,[11][12] while presenting their activities to donors as humanitarian help. German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere said, "Donations to so-called social welfare groups belonging to Hamas, such as the millions given by IHH, actually support the terror organization Hamas as a whole." [12][11]