Front group finance: recommended reading

• Are tea party groups subjected to greater scrutiny than Islamic charities? A nonprofit consultant says yes (h/t creeping)… more>>

• How Saudi charitable fronts pump millions of dollars via hawala into Kashmir to transform it into a valley of Wahhabism… more>>

• Islamic charities have exploited America to fund Chechen jihadists since 9/11… more>>

• No longer confined to the blogosphere, the Associated Press reports on the legal battle between a Christian publisher and a terror-linked Muslim syndicate… more>>

Clandestine finance news: recommended reading

• It took Kuwait 12 years after 9/11 to outlaw the financing of terrorism. That was still faster than Sweden…  more>>

• A Dubai subsidiary illegally transfers software to Syria, and incurs the second biggest fine in the history of export control… more>>

• Bitcoin‘s sales pitch was based on freedom from regulation. Not so fast, say the feds… more>>

• The Global Muslim Brotherhood Daily Report has closed shop, but don’t despair.  It has launched a new and improved website:  The Global Muslim Brotherhood Daily Watch… more>>

 

Money jihad news: recommended reading

• “We know that the financial markets are one of the battlefields on which future wars will be fought.”  So what are we doing about it?  More>>

• It’s not just the big boys. Increasing cyber-attacks even have your community bank looking over its shoulder… more>>

• As a thief, it doesn’t get any better than pulling off a $97 million heist. Until you realize you’re stuck with a million pieces of paper weighing half a ton stacked 40 stories high… more>>

• “Lawfare” is used to stifle, intimidate, and discredit those speaking and writing about Islamism, terrorism, and its financing—a fancy way of trying to cut out our tongues… more>>

Money jihad news: recommended reading

• Cyber attacks are often treated as technology news. But now it’s more about bucks than bits… more>>

• So generous of Venezuela to have given a diplomatic passport Hezbollah agent Ghazi Nasr al Din . How many more operatives like him are immune from baggage searches at customs?  More>>

• You’re a kidnapped Filipino, and your government won’t pay for your ransom. Why your government is right… more>>

• The Palestinian Authority denies paying salaries to terrorists in Israeli prisons.  I beg to disagree, says prisoner’s wife… more>>

• Are the FARC and Al Qaeda partnering in a cocaine-for-cash and weapons trade? And you thought cash-for-clunkers was bad… more>>

Backstabbed: How Iraq helps Iran skirt sanctions

Nobody has been as good at tracking the painful truth of Iraqi-facilitated evasion of international sanctions on Iran as financial crime consultant Kenneth Rijock.  Consider:

• The Kurds in northern Iraq have “allowed both rampant money laundering, and widespread facilitation of global Iran sanctions evasion” though their banks. In central Iraq, U.S. dollars are flowing in bulk from Baghdad to Iran… more>>
• Lebanese banks and Bank Melli, a sanctioned Iranian bank, are operating in northern Iraq.  EU and North American businesses that use Lebanese banks may not be taking sufficient steps to prevent their transactions from benefiting Iranian end-users… more>>
• “Iraq blatantly disregards UN sanctions on Iran” in accepting an Iranian-flagged vessel‘s shipment at its Um Qasr port, for example… more>>
• Five Turkish banks in Iraq may be facilitating Iran’s sanction dodging behavior… more>>
• Iran will reap $16 billion annually from a new natural gas deal with Iraq… more>>

Reading about the dangerous anti-money laundering (AML) and combating the financing of terrorism (CFT) policies of Iraq may be upsetting to those who have made personal sacrifices fighting for Iraqi freedom, but we have to face the current facts.  How does Rijock describe the Iraq invasion?  “Military success, yes; but AML/CFT utter failure.”

Money trail news: recommended reading

• Of course, old chap, Bank Saderat has financed Iran’s nuclear program. But that doesn’t give you the right to impose economic sanctions, says an EU court… more>>
• The web, smartcards, and cell phones were sold as glittering innovations that would empower the world’s poor. Now Bangladesh is desperately wading through massive rivers of fast-moving data in time to catch the next terrorist transaction… more>>
• Nine men have been convicted of fundraising for the jihadist Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan. An overdue update to this story from Paris… more>>
• Iranian state-run newspaper claims it has proof that Saudi Arabia is funding Al Qaeda fighters of Syria’s al-Nusra Front.  Even a broken clock is right twice a day… more>>
• A Muslim Brotherhood group is helping coordinate events in Tunisia thanks to some money from an unexpected source.  The British taxpayer… more>>

Funding armed struggle: suggested news reading

• Twenty Chechen blackshirts show up to join the fight in Syria.  “Jihad needs very many things. Firstly it needs money. Much is dependent on money today for jihad,” says the rebel leader… more>>
• A Hamas charity maintained an account with a French bank in the early 2000s.  Eight suicide bombs, five bus bombs, and 140 corpses later, a federal judge says Credit Lyonnais will stand trial… more>>
• When you’re laundering money for the world’s biggest gun-runner, you might not want everybody to know exactly who you are.  Maybe that’s why Syrian-born “Richard Chichakli” has 16 aliases… more>>
• Ansar al-Sharia attacked the U.S. embassy in Tunis last year, and they seem to have a lot of money to throw around.  But we are, says one member, merely funded by local donations from around the neighborhood.  It is, Aaron Zelin explains, not the whole story… more>>
• The U.S. State Department has announced it will provide aid to the Free Syrian Army.  True, the FSA fights alongside Al Qaeda, but let’s not split hairs… more>>

Black money news: recommended reading

• Jiminy cricket! Our friend El Grillo says a “Stockholm suicide bomber falsely claimed student loans to fund his terrorist activity.”  The latest case of debt financing the jihad… more>>

• The good news is that Indian financial institutions are getting better about filing suspicious transaction reports. The bad news is that it makes it look like India has experienced a 300 percent increase in terrorist financing activity since last year.  Maybe they have… more>>

• Which way is the wind blowing?  Towards Iran.  Just ask Europe about its renewable energy sanctions waiver for Iranian wind power.  Thanks to Willauer Prosky for sending this in… more>>

• International financial watchdog FATF is supposed to counter the financing of terrorism. But lately it seems more focused on getting countries to pass meaningless laws and high-fiving itself… more from Dr. Rachel Ehrenfeld>>

• Money Jihad has covered the illicit wildlife trade, particularly in cheetahs by rich Arab buyers. But even we didn’t know how extensive the cheetah market has become in Dubai.  No reporting yet on how the smugglers use the revenues… more>>

News on the money jihad: recommended reading

• The Muslim Brotherhood played midwife to the birth of contemporary Islamic banking.  All it took was $100 million, an open door policy in Luxembourg, and the blessings of a Saudi king… more>>

• Al Qaeda insurgents in Iraq were paid about $40 a month.  Hezbollah agents in Cyprus?  $600… more>>

• Their tunnels flooded, Gaza’s bulk cash smugglers search for a workaround.  Bank compliance officers, be forewarned… more>>

• Israel’s civil defense minister exposes the “real base” of Hezbollah’s revenues—Europe… more>>

• No longer content to tax coca farmers and drug traffickers, Peru’s Shining Path may target tourists for kidnapping.  Time to reconsider that trip to Machu Picchu… more>> (h/t Jose Maria Blanco)

Illicit finance news: suggested reading

• Shariah Finance Watch writes that the latest sanctions by Treasury against the leader of Al Qaeda in North Africa are “purely political theater”… more>>

• World traveler Richard Chichakli, the Syrian-American who helped Viktor Bout run guns to Hezbollah, seeks bail. Australian judge: “Bit of a flight risk, aren’t you?” more>>

• Need to get a supply shipment to Afghanistan?  On your way, be sure to dock in Bandar Abbas, Iran, just like the Americans.  Starr asks, “Why is the United States Subsidizing Iran?”  more (or here)>>

• If Mazaheri thought he could smuggle a 70 million dollar check, what else has Iran’s former central bank chief gotten away with?  Ken Rijock investigates… more>>

• One man’s search for Noah’s ark could help bankrupt terrorism… more>>

Suggested reading: SFW on madrassas

The Islamic schoolhouse remains the incubator for Wahhabi indoctrination across the Muslim world today, yet we do nothing about its funding.  Please take a look at this recent post Shariah Finance Watch:

http://www.shariahfinancewatch.org/blog/2012/07/27/zakat-support-for-madrassas/