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Qatar and Terror FinanceDownload the full report here. |
The war against terrorism funding is a complex undertaking.
A major part of the money is transferred in cash. Without specific
intelligence, it passes under all of the controls of the financial
system. Another part of the money is laundered by a network of
legitimate straw companies and financial organizations that do not
adhere to the rules against money laundering, and that includes certain
banks. In the past, well-established bankers in western countries were
caught violating the sanctions imposed on Iran or laundering money for
the drug cartels of Mexico and for other parties.
Another aspect which makes financial monitoring of terrorist
organizations particularly difficult has to do with the fact that some
of these organizations are financially backed by states. Iran, Saudi
Arabia and Qatar are just a small part of a long list of countries,
including western countries, which secretly support terrorist
organizations for the purpose of promoting their political objectives.
The implication of this state of affairs is that the intelligence
agencies and financial institutions of the country that funds terrorism
actively conceal the transfer of funds to the terrorist organization. In
some cases, even if other countries are aware of this process, they
would not betray the wayward countries owing to political interests.
The terrorist organizations sometimes exploit social
organizations and NGOs that operate in their countries. The transfer of
funds to a social organization operating for the benefit of the
inhabitants of that country is regarded as a legitimate donation. In
some cases, the employees of these organizations belong, either directly
or indirectly, to a terrorist organization in that country, and they
transfer a part of the organization's funds to fictitious social
projects. In these cases, the money is used to fund terrorist activities
and is extremely difficult to trace. Once again, even if the money is
traced, this information is not always usable on the geo-political
arena.
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