Financial Crime Online

Now just when you thought it perhaps isn’t as bad as it seems…. Austrian magazin Profil reported that Muammar Kaddafi (or al-Gaddafi; indeed the infamous Libian leader) gave Haider, the late right wing Austrian politician, hundreds of thousands of dollars in tote bags. Profil, based on several sources, claims that the cash was susequently bundled [...]

Remember reports last year that Al Qaeda was in the worst state from a financial point of view since years? We should also remember Sun Tzu: no matter how weak your enemy has become; crush your enemy before he regains strength. “We need to redouble our efforts to combat the financial support networks of al [...]

This week the FBI announced the indictment of 10 individuals charged with conspiring to export weapons from Philadelphia to the Port of Latakia, Syria. The suspects allegedly wanted to help Hizballah by providing them with 1,200 Colt M4 Carbines. Other suspects were also charged with conspiring to provide material support to Hizballah in the form [...]

About 15 million people around the world use heroin, opium or morphine, fueling a $65 billion market, warned Antonio Maria Costa, head of the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime. The trade is fueling terrorism and insurgencies: The Taliban raised between $450 million and $600 million in the past four years by “taxing” opium farmers [...]

Yesterday the Assistant Secretary for (against) Terrorist Financing David S. Cohen addressed the ABA Money Laundering Enforcement Conference. Mr Cohen emphasized the importance of the private sector in combating money laundering and terrorism financing. It is mainly the banking sector that actually enforces the filtering of financial transactions against all sorts of lists of unwanted [...]

The Hindustan Times reported ‘One of the largest Hawala networks in the world unearthed’. We have never seen the Guiness Book of Records entry for Hawaladars but as always the summary of the Hawala network emphasizes how vast they can be and how much funds can be funneled across the world without detection. This week [...]

Three Yemeni immigrants conspired to put more than $100,000 into overseas bank accounts they thought were controlled by Hezbollah, U.S. prosecutors say.  The NY shopkeepers, Alomari, Al Huraibi and Saeed are standing trial on money-laundering charges in U.S. District Court in Rochester, N.Y. The case started by investigating over 300 CTR’s (currency transaction reports) that were [...]

Sheik Mohammed Ali Hasan Al-Moayad and his assistant were arrested in 2003 in Germany after an undercover operation that involved two FBI informants. The FBI bugged a hotel room where the sheik and the informants met. Sheik Al-Moayad promised to funnel $2 million to Hamas and al-Qaida in return for financial support for a bakery and [...]

In the war against terrorism we have lost a lot of battles. And won some. From a financial crime (terrorism financing) point of view we have had our successes and failures. We do everything we can to stop money flowing to terror groups. Given reports that Al Qaeda is strapped for cash our measures seem [...]

European Union monitors were posted at the Egyptian border of Rafah to oversee controls related to smuggling cash by Hamas in 2006. For regular travelers entering Gaza through Rafah, sums over NIS 80,000 shekels ($19,000) must be declared. Diplomats estimated that Hamas, whose government is restricted by U.S. and EU sanctions, has managed to bring [...]