Terrorist Financing Methodologies - Research Paper Example

Terrorist Financing Methodologies One of the major problems facing by the current world is the increasing terrorism. At the time of writing this paper, newspaper reports show that more than 15 people were killed in Hyderabad, India a couple of days before, because of terrorist attack. Even though fight against terrorism or war on terror is going on at different parts of the world, terrorists are still able to strike their target without much problems. Cassese (2006) pointed out that terrorism is a crime against humanity (p.933). However, terrorists have other ideas. They justify their activities with the help of other ideologies. In some cultures, killing of enemies is not at all a sin whereas in some other cultures, killing of even animals is a crime or sin. In short, cultural beliefs play a vital role in spreading terrorism. One of the major reasons for the spreading of terrorism or the failure of governments in preventing terrorism is the uninterrupted supply of financial aids to the terror groups from different sources. It should be noted that sponsoring of terrorism is an expensive act. Money and other resources are necessary for the terrorist groups to strike the target with utmost precision and cause huge damages to the life and properties. In fact terrorism is a business of billions, not millions. Some charitable trusts and big companies are in the list of suspected financiers of terrorists. It is easy for the terrorist groups to operate in the name of charitable trusts. Same way, market wars often force companies to cause damage to the rivals and they usually seek help from the terrorist groups to destroy the properties of rival companies. Credit card forgery, identity theft, drug mafia etc are some other funding sources of terrorism. Banking institutions also help terrorists unknowingly. This paper analyses the terrorist financing methodologies Funding sources of terrorist groups States Some terrorist groups enjoy moral support from different nations. It is believed that Al-Qaeda like Muslim terrorist organizations gets huge support from Sudan and Pakistan like countries. . “The U.S. has charged the Sudanese government of being liable for the al-Qaeda attack on the USS Cole missile destroyer in 2000” (SUDAN-US: USS Cole Case, p.17026). In other words, US believes that Sudan government financially supported al-Qaeda for conducting terrorist missions in America. It should be noted that US is one of the most important financial supporters of Sudan. America supports Sudan on humanitarian grounds. “For fiscal years 2005-2007, the U.S. Government committed over $4 billion to Sudan for humanitarian assistance and peacekeeping in Darfur as well as support for implementation of the peace accord and reconstruction and development in Southern Sudan” (U.S.-Sudanese Relations, 2008, p.11). However Sudan uses such funding not for helping the poor people, but for conducting terrorist activities in the fund donor America itself. In short, America is indirectly helping Sudan to conduct terrorist attack in their soil itself. America should make sure that the humanitarian aids given to the third world countries are reaching in the hands of poor people instead of the terrorists. They should improve the fund spending monitoring mechanisms further. Moreover, they should stop funding to anti-American countries. The anti-American stand of current Sudanese president is famous. In fact, Al-Bashir’s anti-American or anti-western stands are inspirational to the terrorists in Sudan. Al-Bashir recently, said that; “They (USA, UK and France) are all under my shoes” or “the UNSC and the ICC personnel should soak their resolutions and drink their water” (El-Tom, n.d.). There is no point in helping Sudan when an anti-American president rules there. America is also not free from the accusations of helping the terrorist groups. Even though Britain is one of the closest allies of America, America’s soft corner towards Irish Republican Army (IRA) is famous. James Ivory (2007) pointed out that “IRA has historically enjoyed a degree of romantic sympathy from many supporters in the United States (p.214). It is believed that IRA is getting many financial aids from its American supporters. America should realise that terrorism has only one face irrespective of in which soil it happens. America should stop financing the IRA like terrorist groups even if IRA has many reasons to justify their activities. Killing of innocent people should not be tolerated under any circumstances. Life is the most important thing in this world and nobody should have the right to take it. Only the creator should be allowed to take life back. It is an accepted fact that Pakistan is sponsoring terrorism in India. They are helping the Muslim fundamentalists in India to conduct terrorist activities. Indian rupees are printed in Pakistan and they are dispersing those fake currencies to Indian terrorists. The National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Monday told the Supreme Court that bail should not be granted to persons engaged in circulating high value fake Indian currency notes printed in Pakistan as it amounted to an act of terror intended to destabilize India's economy. It said such high quality fake Indian currency notes (FICN), which were difficult to detect by the naked eye, were seized throughout the country - three places in Kerala, Kolkata, Bhopal, two places in Bihar and also from Punjab - and claimed that it was an attempt to destabilize the country's economy and create doubt in the minds of citizens about the genuineness of legal tender (Mahapatra, 2012). It should be noted that black money definitely creates economic problems in India. Pakistan is trying to achieve two objectives with the help of spreading fake currencies in India; they can help the terrorists in India financially and they can cause problems to India’s economic growth. In short, plenty of nations are helping terrorist groups financially. Organizations For over thirteen years, multinational oil giant Royal Dutch Shell has done everything in its power to stop a trial from taking place at which the company must answer to charges that it colluded with the Nigerian military to commit serious human rights abuses to quell peaceful resistance to its operations in the Niger Delta region called Ogoni, including conspiring to bring about the conviction and execution of Ogoni leader Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight of his colleagues (Jarvis, 2009) Shell is not the only company which supports terrorism in one way or another. There are plenty of companies which support terrorism financially as part of their business strategy to destroy opponents. While companies operate in states which support terrorism, they are supporting terrorism indirectly. “The majority of publicly traded companies that do business in terrorist-sponsoring states have legal, commercial ties to these countries and are not known to directly support terrorism” (What Is Terror-Free Investing?, 2010). For example, Pakistan is a country famous for many terrorist organizations such as Al Qaeda, Lashkar-e-Taiba etc. American government is helping Pakistan immensely. Same way plenty of American companies are currently operating in Pakistan. These companies are helping Pakistan to boost its economic growth. Pakistan on the other hand is supporting terrorism in many ways. It should not be forgotten that Pakistan was successful in hiding Osama from America for many years even though America located him later. Companies should be extremely careful while they select their destination for expansion activities or offshoring of business. They should express their social responsibility while selecting countries for investment. Even if the business potentials are good, companies should stay away from investing in countries which support terrorism. Drug Mafia With the terrorist attack on Himachal Roadways Transport Corporation bus at Kalachuk on the Pathankot-Jammu highway, the intelligence has warned of a possibility of the drug mafia operating in the state having connections with the Mumbai underworld, which further has links with various terrorist organizations (Drug mafia, terrorist links suspected, 2002). Drug mafia always likes to operate from border areas. It is easy for them to transport illegal drugs from one country to another country while operating from the border areas. Since terrorism and drug trafficking has many common areas of interests, the nexus between these two antisocial entities is common in many countries. It is believed that the drug mafia in Afghanistan is the major funding source of Taliban. War on terror should be conducted along with war on drugs. America is conducting war on terror in some parts of the world. However, they are not much keen in fighting against drug mafia. The destruction of drug mafia may play a vital role in the destruction of terrorism since terror groups may struggle to get proper financial aids once the drug mafia is destroyed from the roots. Charitable organizations Many of the charity organizations functioning all over the world are actually financiers of terrorist group. They accept funds from various individuals and groups for charity works and distribute these funds to terrorist groups to conduct their missions successfully.Lashkar e Taiba or LeT is enlisted the terrorist organizations by America recently. Pakistan forced to ban this organization to put dust in the eyes of external observers. “LeT renamed itself Jamaat ud Dawa (JUD) in an effort to evade sanctions. Despite the name change, the same leaders that form the core of LeT remain in charge of JUD. The founder of LeT, Hafez Mohammed Saeed, also heads the JUD” (Nature of the threat of terrorist abuse and exploitation of non-profit organizations (npos), n.d., p.1). In short, terrorist organizations change their names, structure and looks just to cheat others. But they will never change their objectives, visions and missions. It is vital to identify such organizations and banning them. Governments should makes sure that charitable organizations operate strictly in accordance with the rules and regulations. It is easy for charity organizations to get public sympathy when governments take actions against them. Governments should educate the people about the problems in assisting suspected charity organizations. Credit card forgery “As the credit card becomes an important payment instrument, it also opens doors of opportunities especially for modern day criminals to profit from it” (Probowo, 2012, p.150). Credit card forgery is another way of collecting finance for the terrorist organizations. It should be noted that most of the terrorist organizations have the services of smart hackers. They are intelligent enough to penetrate or break any firewall created by others. Financial institutions such as banks should strengthen their mechanisms so that the forgery of credit cards should not be happen under any circumstances. They should empower the customers with respect to the safe usages of credit cards. They should ask the customers not to use credit cards in unauthorized places or pass the pin to unauthorized people. Banks should strengthen their firewall much more to prevent antisocial elements such as terrorists misusing credit cards. The Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) can be used effectively to block the financing of terrorist groups. “Congress laid the foundations of the federal antimony laundering (AML) framework in 1970 when it passed the BSA, the major money laundering provisions of which make up the Currency and Foreign Transaction Reporting Act (CFTRA)” (Weiss, 2005, p.2). Banking institutions should monitor the money transactions strictly. Under Currency and Foreign Transaction Reporting Act (CFTRA), it is mandatory for the financial institutions to gather information about the suspected money transactions and passing it on to federal officials (Weiss, 2005, p.3). Many of the modern day banks have the habit of keeping liberal policies to attract more customers, especially in the heavily competitive current business world. Terrorists are exploiting this situation very cleverly. Banks should inform the authorities about the suspected transactions immediately as it happens. Conclusions Terrorists are getting financial support from many sources. States, charity organizations, drug mafia, companies etc are some of the major financiers of terrorist groups. Credit card forgery and cheque fraud are other means used by terrorist to obtain funding for their activities. Governments and companies should make sure that their activities never help terrorist in one way or another. Companies and states should stay away from investing in countries which support terrorism. War on terror and war on drugs should be conducted simultaneously to break the financial back bone of terrorism. References Cassese, A. (2006). The Multifaceted Criminal Notion of Terrorism in International Law. Journal of International Criminal Justice Volume 4, Issue 5 Pp. 933-958 Drug mafia, terrorist links suspected, (2002). The Times of India. May 6, 2002. El-Tom, A O. (n.d.). New Sudanese Terrorist Alliance Threatens A Repeat Of September 11”. Retrieved from http://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?article30535 Ivory, J D. (2007). Sneak Peeks at Insurrection: Portrayals of the Irish Republican Army in FilmTrailers. Atlantic Journal of Communication. 2007, Vol. 15 Issue 3, p.p214 Jarvis, C. (2009). Shell Admits Participation in Terrorism. Retrieved from http://www.realizedworth.com/2009/06/shell-admits-participation-in-terrorism.html Mahapatra, D. (2012). Smuggling fake currency from Pakistan to India is a terror act: NIA. The Times of India. December 11, 2012. Nature of the threat of terrorist abuse and exploitation of non-profit organizations (npos), (n.d.), Retrieved from http://kabul.usembassy.gov/media/doc0.pdf Probowo, H.Y. (2012), Credit Card Fraud, Terrorist Financing and Underground Economy: See the Connection? European Journal of Economics, Finance and Administrative Sciences.1450-2275 Issue 47 (2012) SUDAN-US: USS Cole Case. Africa Research Bulletin: Political, Social & Cultural Series. Mar2007, Vol. 44 Issue 3, p17026-17027. U.S.-Sudanese Relations. Background Notes on Countries of the World: Republic of the Sudan. Apr2008, p11-13. What Is Terror-Free Investing?, (2010), Retrieved from http://www.terrorfreeinvesting.com/TFI.html Weiss M.A. (2005). Terrorist Financing: U.S. Agency Efforts and Inter-Agency Coordination. CRS Report for Congress. Retrieved from http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/terror/RL33020.pdf Read More