Sordid money: recommended news reading

• National security adviser:  millions of dollars are coming from the Arab Gulf to Canada to promote a “jihadist interpretation of the Qur’an”… more>>

• Where is Iran getting U.S. currency that it sends to Hamas?  From Baghdad and the Kurdish region of Iraq… more>>

• T. Boone Pickens:  There’s no need to negotiate with Iranian liars because “we do not need Mid-East oil” any longer.  The U.S. has plenty energy resources of its own… more>>

• Former Guantanamo Bay detainees are seeking a housing allowance from the United States.  You see, their four-bedroom house in Montevideo isn’t spacious enough… more>>

High-risk men max out credit cards before Middle East travel

Over one hundred “very high-risk” account holders have borrowed the maximum amount of money they could from their bank before traveling to countries neighboring Iraq and Syria.  Presumably this means Turkey and perhaps Lebanon or Jordan.  Typically those are the places ISIS recruits from the West fly into before crossing the border by ground into Syria or Iraq.  The credit card accounts have gone dormant and the debts will never be paid back.

Thanks to Gisele for sending this news in about debt-financed travel for jihad from QMI via the Toronto Sun:

114 ‘high-risk’ Canadians bilked RBC before leaving for areas near conflict zones

The Royal Bank of Canada has identified 114 clients as “very high-risk” for maxing out their credit cards before travelling to countries near Syria and Iraq, QMI Agency has learned.

Before leaving Canada, the clients borrowed the maximum amount of money allowed on their credit cards or lines of credit, a senior RBC vice president, Karim Rajwani, told participants during a webinar earlier this year.

QMI Agency obtained the audio recording.

The webinar was organized for anti-money laundering and anti-terrorist financing professionals in the banking industry.

Rajwani, a world expert in the fight against terrorist financing, says he discreetly shared his information with the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service.

None of the 114 clients paid off their debts and their accounts have been inactive since they left the country, he added.

“We aren’t saying that these people are terrorists, just very high-risk individuals,” Rajwani noted.

“They get a line of credit and they leave. We see a few transactions in overseas ATMs in countries neighbouring areas controlled by the Islamic State, and after that they disappear”…

Canada warns of crowdfunded terrorism

As Money Jihad noted in 2014, Islamists generally view crowdfunding as a sharia-compliant form of project financing. Inadequate terms of service and controls by online crowdsourcing sites are allowing the websites to be exploited by Muslim men living in the West who want to fund their travel to join the fight in Syria. Recent comments by a Canadian intelligence deputy director confirm this growing and disturbing trend. From Québecor Media Inc newswire (h/t El Grillo):

Terrorists turn to web to fund travel

By Andrew McIntosh,QMI Agency

MONTREAL – Some Canadians, intent on joining jihadi fighters in Iraq and Syria but low on funds, have taken to the web to raise cash.

The turn to crowdsourcing online has netted potential terrorists as much as $10,000 each. It’s a worrying trend, according to Michael Peirce, a deputy director at the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS).

Peirce recently raised the issue while testifying before the Senate’s standing committee on national security and defence.

“When we’re talking about individuals, for instance, individuals who are raising money for terrorist purposes within Canada, they can be relatively moderate sums, up to $10,000,” he told the committee.

While that figure is what can be expected for an individual, the amount that an organization can raise can reach six figures.

The groups and individuals are able to raise such large amounts by obscuring where the money will actually be going, Peirce explained, which also makes it difficult to prove wrongdoing.

“They won’t necessarily direct the full purpose of raising funds,” he said. “Again, they might do it under the cover of humanitarian aid”…

Jihad money news: recommended reading

• Al Qaeda tells followers to wage economic war against the West… more>>

• U.S. food and medicine aid to Syrians is being taxed, skimmed, and stolen by ISIS… more>>

• Canada has more home-grown terrorists than the U.S. or Australia, and private donors are sending money from Canada through conduit countries to ISIS… more>>

• ISIS offered $25K to a Turkish teen for contract bombing of a major Vienna train station… more>>

• ISIS’s budget constraints and increasing expectations of their subject populations will seal their doom… more>>

Mounties met with Muslim Brotherhood sponsors after parliament slaying

After the jihadist murder of Corporal Nathan Cirillo, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the Ottowa police force met with several Islamic groups in order to reach out to them and reassure them. The website Point de Bascule points out that several of the groups that police met with have previously funded IRFAN, Human Concern International, or Islamic Relief Canada, all of which have been implicated in terrorist financing schemes. Here’s an accounting of how much money the groups that Canadian police met with gave to those front groups:

Thanks to Gisele for sending in the PdB report and the Sun TV graphic on the money trails between the Canadian Islamic groups and suspected terrorist affiliates.

Arab state cash: recommended news reading

• Samer Majzoub has served as Montreal’s middleman with the radical World Assembly of Muslim Youth and now Kuwait’s embassy to fund Islamic schools in Canada… more>>

• Who funds the ISIS crisis? A top German official says, “The keyword there is Qatar“… more>>

• The chorus grows:  “The U.S. needs to call a spade a spade and label Qatar as a State Sponsor of Terrorism“… (h/t Brian)… more>>

• What role does Venezuela play as a cash courier for “humanitarian relief” on behalf of terror sponsors? Answer>>

Money Jihad blog benefits from celebrity tweets

We were quite surprised when comedian and actress Roseanne Barr recently tweeted out a link to a Money Jihad blog post from last year about Hamas’s involvement in organ trafficking to her quarter-million followers on Twitter:

But the 17 retweets and 10 favorites to Roseanne’s tweet didn’t drive quite as much traffic as the 55 retweets and 127 favorites for a droll tweet earlier this month by television actor David Boreanaz to his 600,000 Twitter fans:  “Number 4: https://moneyjihad.wordpress.com/2011/08/29/the-worlds-5-richest-terrorist-groups/,” corresponding to Hamas’s place among the world’s five richest terrorist groups as ranked by Money Jihad:

But oftentimes the Hollywood tweeps can’t compete with subject matter experts with large followings on Twitter. Canadian commentator Tarek Fatah, author of The Jew is Not My Enemy and several other books, routinely attracts multiple retweets, as he did with this 2013 tweet about Money Jihad’s profile of one of Jamaat-e-Islami’s Saudi financiers:

That level of influence is tough to match on our own. But with over 4,500 followers on Twitter, @moneyjihad chirps out some popular tweets linking back to the blog, like this one in May about the Canadian Islamic charity IRFAN’s financing of Hamas:

Twitter, in addition to being a very fun way of gathering news and engaging with people about terrorist financing, has been a very effective method of drawing attention to the blog.

Canada: Hezbollah immersed in organized crime

Indeed. Most terrorists either personally know or know somebody who knows an organized crime figure, and vice versa.

According to Hezbollah’s Iranian masters, criminal mischief is religiously justifiable so long as it is done to harm the enemies of Islam.

From Sun News on June 3:

Hezbollah tied to organized crime in Canada, says spy agency

MONTREAL – Hezbollah members in Canada are involved in organized crime, according to Canadian Security Intelligence Service reports and documents.

Members of the outlawed group – banned as a terrorist entity in Canada since 2002 – also are secretly engaging in fundraising, procurement of materials and intelligence gathering, according to a “threat assessment” report by the Integrated Terrorism Assessment Centre.

Hezbollah’s activities here were among the subjects the spy agency expressed concern about in a “top secret” 10-page letter he wrote and delivered last July to Public Safety Minister Steven Blaney, soon after he was sworn in…

5 big terror finance stories so far in 2014

Money Jihad has blogged or tweeted about all these news stories, but they’re all significant enough that they merit a second look by anybody interested in the topic of terror finance. Here are some of the most significant news articles and commentaries written about terrorist financing news developments of the year so far:

Australian money laundering bust: “Project Eligo” resulted in at least 105 arrests, 190 criminal charges, and over $500 million in assets seized in Australia since the beginning of the year. Exchange houses involved in the laundering operation were delivering a cut of profits to Hezbollah, illustrating the control that Hezbollah exerts over global financial transactions…more from the Sydney Morning Herald>>

Canada seizes $7 million in Iranian assets: The seizure is significant not only because it delivers justice to victims of Iranian-sponsored terrorism, but because it demonstrates the validity of the legal theory that terrorism can be partially bankrupted through litigation. Previous judgments have been just that—judgments without seizing or disbursing assets. Now legal methods prove that the lawyers of terrorists’ victims deserve a seat at the table along with military operations, intelligence, law enforcement, sanctions, and other counter-terror techniques…more from the CBC>>

Turkish corruption scandal: The ongoing Turkish corruption scandals boil down to a rivalry between two Islamists, Prime Minister Recep Erdogan and the cryptic Pennsylvania imam Fetullah Gulen. But the scandal has also revealed the degree to which Turkey has enabled Iranian sanctions evasion, and at the same time we’re learning more about Turkey’s support for Al Qaeda and Hamas…more from Jonathan Schanzer>>

Sanctions relief offered to Iran could fund terrorism. Easing Iranian sanctions as part of a larger diplomatic push offers no controls over how Iran uses the money. Not only will the money not be used to satisfy judgments won by the victims of Iranian terror, but the money could be given to the perpetrators of Iranian terror, including Hezbollah, the IRGC, Hamas, and the Quds Force…more from Adam Kredo of the Washington Free Beacon>>

Kuwait’s terror financing cabinet minister proves too hot to handle. Kuwait, whose hide the U.S. saved during the Gulf war, brazenly stabbed us in the back after 9/11 by failing to outlaw terrorist financing for 10 years. Then Kuwait added insult to injury in January by promoting a top private fundraiser for jihad in Syria to not one but two major government posts simultaneously. This prompted US Treasury officials to grow a spine and actually condemn Kuwait for rewarding this kind of person. Nayef al-Ajmi finally quit earlier this month… more from Reuters>>

Armed, funded jihad: recommended reading

• “Although funding terrorism was criminalised in Finland 12 years ago, no-one has yet been convicted”… more>>

• Anti-tank missiles are being shipped through Turkey and Saudi Arabia to Syrian rebels… more>>

• Pakistani front charities like JKART are funding the Indian Mujahideen… more>>

• A love for his friend or a love for jihad? Prosecutors say Khurram Syed Sher knew exactly who he was funding… more>>

Terror finance news: recommended reading

• Jihad Watch:  Australia: Muslim radicals tried robbing an ATM to fund jihad in Syria

• American Center for Democracy:  Jean-Charles Brisard on terrorism financing in North Africa

• Kenneth Rijock:  “How extensive was Hezbollah’s Canadian shopping spree?

• Israel Matzav:  “Your taxes at work: ‘Cash strapped’ Palestinian Authority gives freed terrorist murderers $50,000 each”