Terrorist Finance (merged thread)

[bismark17]

It's just another example of their adaptability to their environment. Self sufficient cells might pose a lot of security issues but can be a successful model if they don't stupid things that bring undue attention to themselves.
Obviously their threat capabilities will be on a lower scale.

[Bill Moore]

Some updates that are relevant to old and emergent security challenges, and the nexus between irregular adversaries and organized crime.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/100952225

Organized crime: World’s most lucrative criminal activities

Cross-border organized crime is big business, worth about $2.1 trillion per year, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNDOC), equivalent to 3.5 percent of world GDP in 2009. That's more than six times the world's development aid budget for that year, and equivalent to about 7 percent of global exports of merchandise.


Perhaps unsurprisingly, trafficking illegal drugs is the most lucrative form of illicit business, constituting about half of all proceeds from transnational organized crime. However, plenty of money is also being made from less high-profile enterprises, such as smuggling natural resources such as timber, oil, and gold and other precious metals.

To learn more about this, and other highly profitable criminal activities, read on.

Crime gangs cash in on Europe's budget flights

This type of organized crime group flies gang members to a country in the morning to carry out a succession of quick-fire robberies, before flying out in the evening. They hand over their ill-gotten gains to criminal partners in the local area, and regularly take a different flight to a different country the following day. Private homes, businesses, high-value cars, machine parts and increasingly commodities like metal are all targets

.

We need to make sure there is a swift exchange of intelligence - so we can get ahead of the game and identify these gangs before they strike, or at least get on the back of them as soon as they have done," he said. And make sure we have the means possible by which we can coordinate multinational arrest operations in the end... not working at a national level, but as a connected community.

http://www.stripes.com/news/middle-e...ships-1.245154

Terrorism newest worry for cargo ships

“A rocket fired by suspected al-Qaida terrorists at a COSCO container ship as it transited the Suez Canal in August apparently hit a container crammed full of smuggled cigarettes,” the JOC article said, citing a report by the Irish Independent.

The illicit cargo, with an estimated street value of nearly $6 million, was headed to a phony furniture company in Dundalk, Ireland, part of a smuggling operation supposedly run by businessmen with links to the former members of the Irish Republican Army.

According to Irish press reports, the cigarettes were believed to have been acquired in Vietnam and were heading for Rotterdam, the Netherlands, when the ship was attacked. A tracking device was placed on the container at the Port of Rotterdam and tracked by satellite through Dublin Port and on to a village near Dundalk in County Louth, where four men were arrested.

This is serious, but on the lighter side it appears AQ exposed an international cigarette smuggling operation. Do they get reward money for this?

[davidbfpo]

Once again Norway's FFI provides public insight, with a report 'The financing of jihadi terrorist cells in Europe', in English and 68 pgs long. Short of time read the summary and the conclusion.

From the summary:

This report takes stock of how jihadis in Western Europe raise, move, and spend money. Usingnew data from court documents and media reports, it reviews the financing of 40 jihadi terrorist cells that have plotted attacks in Europe, and examines a selection of cases in depth. European terrorists’ financial activities are remarkably ordinary. Jihadis who have plotted attacks in Western Europe most commonly relied on funding from the cell members’ own salaries and savings. The vast majority of the cells studied (90 %) were involved in income-generating activities, and half of them were entirely self-financed. Only one in four received economic support from international terrorist organizations such as al-Qaida.

Finally, jihadi terrorist attacks in Western Europe have generally been cheap, with three quarters of the plots studied estimated to cost less than $10,000.

Link:http://www.ffi.no/no/Rapporter/14-02234.pdf

Anyone aware of a similar report covering the USA?

[davidbfpo]

A somewhat odd, UK-centric BBC commentary by a RUSI expert:

Over the past 18 months, hundred of people have travelled from the UK to fight in Syria. Most have joined the self-styled Islamic State. Could banks assist the security authorities identify some of these so-called foreign fighters by uncovering "telltale" financial footprints?

(Near the end) ... engagement between the authorities and banks in exploiting this capability for security purposes remains limited despite the obvious benefits it can bring.

Link:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-32722318

'Suspicious Activity Reports', known as SAR, are the common referral mechanism from the banks and other insitutions to the police. In both the UK & USA there are plenty of them, with only very few being productive. Above all "cash is king" and so the value of such cooperation is very moot.

[AdamG]

Gotta give them credit for knowing how to game the Socialist System.

Thirty-two Danes have collected nearly 400,000 kroner worth of unemployment benefits while fighting in Syria, it was revealed on Monday.
http://www.thelocal.dk/20150518/dani...lfare-benefits

[davidbfpo]

Another short RUSI commentary; the summary:

As recent reports highlight the increasing risk of Daesh-inspired lone actor or small cell homeland terrorist attacks, an urgent recalibration of terrorist-finance disruption efforts is required to include both funds flowing to Syria/Iraq and those raised to be used at home.

Near the end:

The traditional measures in place for tackling terrorist financing play little role in disrupting this rapidly emerging form of low budget terror.

Link:https://www.rusi.org/analysis/commen.../#.VeB3KH2pNiV

[davidbfpo]

A Canadian lawyer's viewpoint, a 14 pg. document from March 2015, which on a quick scan has some gems within:http://www.duhaimelaw.com/wp-content...g-Methods1.pdf

The author's CV:http://www.duhaimelaw.com/lawyers/christine/

[davidbfpo]

Taken from the current Yemen thread and cited in part:

The biggest beneficiary of the war has been AQAP, which now controls some six hundred kilometers of the southern coastline—from just outside Aden to Mukalla, the fifth largest city in Yemen and the capital of Hadramaut province. When AQAP seized the Mukalla at the start of the war, they looted $100 million from its banks. They are now earning at least $2 million and perhaps as much as $5 million a day in smuggling oil. The group is stronger today than ever before.

Link:http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/marka...ecurity-riedel

My interest was prompted by a "lurker" asking does the anti-money laundering legal structure work, when terrorist groups can be self-financing?

[davidbfpo]

A RUSI paper, 42 pgs (un-read yet) by a US author:

This paper offers an overview of the aims of US policy, an examination of the US experience in implementing Sections 314 and 311 of the PATRIOT Act, and a consideration of the advantages and disadvantages of the US approach. It also draws lessons from US experience and provides seven principles for policy-makers to consider when developing public–private information-sharing arrangements at the national or international level.

Link:https://rusi.org/publication/occasio...-us-experience