Terrorist Finance (merged thread)

[davidbfpo]

Thanks to a SWJ comment which linked to this book review of a 2015 book, which was missed:http://www.thewashingtonbookreview.c...cial-networks/

The book is Counterterrorism and Threat Finance Analysis during Wartime edited by David M. Blum and J. Edward Conway, Lexington Books (Rowman & Littlefield), US $85.00, Pp 212, February 2015, ISBN 978-0739180433.

The review states:

The editors have been members of either the Afghanistan Threat Finance Cell (ATFC) or the Iraq Threat Finance Cell. Both Blum and Conway were deployed in wars.

[davidbfpo]

May 2016 CTC Sentinel article by Magnus Ranstrop, on ISIS micro-financing methods in Europe:https://www.ctc.usma.edu/posts/micro...opean-recruits

Abstract: Islamic State recruits from Europe are raising significant funds for the group through multiple microfinancing techniques within the European Union. Moneymaking schemes have included petty theft, fraudulent loan applications, social insurance fraud, and VAT fraud. A range of techniques are being employed by aspiring and active European Islamic State operatives to transfer money to the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, including bringing money with them when they travel to join the group, withdrawing funds from money transfer businesses operating along the Turkey-Syria border, sending cash couriers, and using the hawala system. To shrink this funding pipeline, financial intelligence must be better integrated into EU counterterrorism efforts.

[davidbfpo]

Just spotted and not read a new RUSI report 'Making Information Flow: Instruments and Innovations for Enhancing Financial Intelligence':https://rusi.org/sites/default/files...ation_flow.pdf

[davidbfpo]

An Indian commentary asks whether a "cashless" society will reduce terrorism and found - to my surprise - this:

a “cashless economy” need not be “terror-free”. In November 2014, CNBC conducted a survey of the 10 top “cashless” societies. It found Belgium to be the world’s top cashless society with 93 per cent non-cash consumer payments and 83 per cent debit card use. France was second, then Canada, the UK, Sweden, Australia, Holland, the US, Germany and South Korea. Unfortunately, Belgium and France were also the worst victims of indigenous and trans-border terrorism.

Then citing FATF and US reports states:

Detecting terror financing through legal channels is an extremely onerous task, as the US Treasury and FATF reports would indicate.

Link:http://indianexpress.com/article/opi...ption-4390492/

[davidbfpo]

Another RUSI report on 'Lone-Actor and Small Cell Terrorist Attacks: A New Front in Counter-Terrorist Finance?' and in summary:

As the threat from lone-actor and small cell terrorism evolves, this paper examines the financing of both disrupted and successful plots since 2000 in Great Britain, France and Australia. These plots often require minimal amounts of funding, making proactive identification through financial means challenging. Nonetheless, this paper highlights a number of key themes that warrant further investigation, showing the potentially disruptive role that financial intelligence can play.

Link:https://rusi.org/publication/occasio...-front-counter

Now to starting reading it, so may be a comment later.

[davidbfpo]

Spotted this book last week and might one day get to read it: 'Threat Finance: Dismantling the lifeline of Organized Crime and Terrorism' by Shima D. Keane, published in 2013 by Gower. It is very expensive alas, so a library copy one day.

One review via the publisher I expect is by "Hal" McMaster:

This book provides a lucid education on the often inconvenient realities of serious economic crime and identifies with clinical precision the reasons why it sometimes seems beyond the practical capabilities of the law to deal with it. What makes it so important, however, is Dr Keene's ability to mobilise the difficult thoughts that need to be thought if modern democracy is to survive the corruptive threats of crime and terror and their ability at the more sophisticated levels to exploit the modern accommodations of international finance and cyberspace with apparent impunity. The challenge, so vividly described here, can appear overwhelming; but the lasting influence left by this seminal work is the conviction that it will be more adequately met if some of the current cosy thinking on this subject in relevant fields of influence can be turned on its head.

Link to Amazon UK:https://www.amazon.co.uk/Threat-Fina...threat+finance

It is far cheaper via:https://www.amazon.com/Threat-Financ...threat+finance

[davidbfpo]

Professor Peter Neumann, Kings College London ICSR, has a scathing review of CT financing activity in Foreign Affairs 'Don't Follow the Money: The Problem With the War on Terrorist Financing'

Here is one passage:

More than a decade and a half into the war on terrorist funding, policymakers must recognize the drawbacks of their current approach. Financial tools cannot stop lone attackers from driving cars into crowds, nor can they do much when groups such as ISIS hold territory and earn most of their income from within it. Policymakers need to acknowledge that the war on terrorist financing, as it has been conducted since 2001, has often been costly and counterproductive, harming innocent people and companies without significantly constraining terrorist groups’ ability to operate. Unless governments find ways to revolutionize how they share information with the financial sector, most of the current procedures for identifying suspicious transactions will continue to be little more than costly box-ticking exercises.

Link:https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/2017-06-13/dont-follow-money?

Quite a few sources cited appear here already.