“Fact check” on halal-terror links ignores facts

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s “Fact Check” department recently examined politician Pauline Hanson’s comment that the halal certification business “is a profit money-making racket. The money goes into Islamic organisations and has been connected to the Muslim Brotherhood in France and actually also in Canada.” ABC claims that “Ms Hanson’s claim doesn’t check out.”

Yet Hanson’s quotation is 100 percent accurate. Muslim Brotherhood affiliates have indeed profited from their dual roles as halal certification boards in France and Canada. ABC ignored the evidence in those cases. The Union of the Islamic Organizations in France and the Muslim Association of Canada—both strongly associated with the Muslim Brotherhood—have made significant profits from certifying food as halal. In the case of MAC, the money it made was subsequently given to IRFAN, a front charity for Hamas.

Instead of examining the French and Canadian evidence, the ABC focused exclusively on whether halal fees have ever been shown to fund terrorism in Australia. ABC reports that Australia’s financial regulatory agency said that “it had no information” and that other Australian officials are not aware of “direct links” between halal certification and terror finance.

Besides, at least in what ABC quoted Hanson as saying, she didn’t even mention terrorism.

It should be clear to fair minded readers that ABC’s article unfairly discredited a politician and disappointingly failed to investigate the facts of the UIOF and MAC cases.

Senator calls for halal financial transparency

Questioning whether the halal industry in Australia may be financing the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, Sen. Jacqui Lambie is introducing a bill mandating disclosure of halal certification fees and creating a formal reporting mechanism for misuse of halal certification money. Given the documented intersections between halal certification boards and the financing of Muslim Brotherhood affiliates, this bill would be an important step in the right direction for all Western democracies, including individual American state legislatures, to consider adopting.

From the Australian Associated Press (AAP) on Feb. 10 (h/t El Grillo):

‘Halal money’ funds terrorism: Lambie

Independent Tasmanian senator Jacqui Lambie has questioned whether halal certification funds militants in Syria and Iraq.

Jacqui Lambie is threatening to introduce a private senator’s bill to stop what she believes is “halal money” funding terrorist group Islamic State.

In a late-night address to the upper house on Tuesday, the outspoken independent senator questioned whether halal certification funds militants in Syria and Iraq.

She said she was prompted to look into the issue after receiving hundreds of emails from concerned residents.

A study the Tasmanian senator commissioned the parliamentary library to examine exposed some “surprising facts” that alarmed her.

Certifiers are not legally required to disclose their fees, nor is there a formal reporting or auditing system to ascertain whether funds are being misused, she says.

“Given that our enemies in Islamic State are receiving a steady cashflow to control their caliphate in Syria and Iraq, why isn’t there a legal requirement in Australia for halal certification fees to be disclosed?” Senator Lambie said.

“And given that our nation is on high terrorism alert, while hundreds of Australian Islamic State sympathisers are fighting our ADF forces in Iraq, why is there is no formal reporting or auditing mechanism in Australia to ascertain whether monies paid for halal certification are misused?”…

Financial war on terror news: suggested reading

• “No doubt” that halal certifiers fund extremism, says member of parliament… more>>

• ISIS wants to mint its own coins—not for practical, economic reasons—but to impose sharia law… more>>

• How to defend against piracy… more>>

• Fresh analysis puts cold water on claims that looted antiquities are ISIS‘s 2nd biggest revenue source… more>>

• The fine line between paying informants for intelligence and paying ransoms to terrorists just got fuzzier… more>>

• Yusuf Qaradawi, the world’s most prominent sharia finance advocate, calls on Muslims to take arms against Israel… more>>

10 tips for businesses to avoid financing terror

If you run or work for a medium or small business that can’t afford to have an entire compliance department, or even a compliance officer, here are a few tips that will help your business reduce its risk of inadvertently funding a terrorist organization, running afoul of federal authorities, or both:

1. Conduct due diligence before taking on new accounts, and do not rely exclusively on Internet searches for due diligence.
2. For international accounts it is doubly important to carry out thorough due diligence (including overseas business partners, banks, security providers, and charities) before signing agreements with them. You will probably have to contract out for investigation services, but it’s worth the expense.
3. If your business promotes or authorizes employee payroll deductions to make charitable contributions, review the list of participating charities. Do not offer payroll deductions for donations to charities suspected of financing terrorism or charities known to have worked with designated terrorists. This would include Islamic Relief USA and the Zakat Foundation (see here and here).
4. If your business requires or offers diversity or equal opportunity training, do not make payments to any organization or person to conduct the training who has been implicated in terrorist financing schemes such as members of the Council on American-Islamic Relations or the Islamic Society of North America, both of which were unindicted co-conspirators in the Holy Land Foundation Hamas-financing case.
5. Think twice before offering sharia-compliant investment accounts to employees or allowing a conventional retirement brokers to offer sharia funds to your employees. These financial products are less transparent with respect to fund management by sharia advisory boards whose members often share close ties with the international Muslim Brotherhood and are not subject to disclosure requirements on where they channel their profits.
6. Do not buy corporate fruit baskets or other gift baskets from Edible Arrangements. Their CEO operates a foundation out of his office at Edible Arrangements allegedly linked to Pakistani front charities that fund Islamist militants.
7. Do not have business lunches, meetings, or conferences catered by halal food providers such as IFANCA and Crescent Foods, which have been endorsed by or have catered events for entities that are suspected to have financed terrorism.
8. If you are asked by an importer whether your business can ship to or “enter an Arab Port?” do not answer the question. That is code language used to ascertain your business’s willingness to participate in the Arab League’s boycott against Israel. Answering the question helps those who oppose the existence of Israel and will lead to fines by the U.S. Office of Antiboycott Compliance.
9. Don’t let your data or your employees be held for ransom. Ask your IT department or technology provider about their security protocols against ransomware. Make adequate plans to protect your employees from abduction during overseas travel. Paying ransoms will serve to enrich criminal or terrorist groups which will be costlier and less secure for your industry in the long run.
10. Bookmark and read blogs such as Money Jihad, Kenneth Rijock’s Financial Crime Blog, and Shariah Finance Watch for the latest threat trends in terror finance risk management. These websites are free unlike some of the other specialized news sites which are informative but fee-based.

Terror money news: recommended reading

• Halal food certification enriches terror affiliates… more>>

• Why terrorists love money transfer companies… more>>

• Vice President says the Gulf monarchies funded ISIS… more>>

• Nigeria’s central bank denies financing Boko Haram… more>>

• An informative review of the controversial $1.3 billion in U.S. foreign aid to Egypt through American and Egyptian eyes… more>>

Video: halal food and its indirect funding of terror

Leading up to our 5-year anniversary, Money Jihad continues looking back at some of the more significant videos over the past few years.

CBN is one of the few media outlets to have ever investigated the disturbing and growing trend of halal food certification funding Muslim Brotherhood affiliates.  Check out their report from 2011 (which we also covered at the time):

10 companies that make money from terror ties

Longtime Money Jihad readers already know that sharia banks are conduits for funding jihadist groups, but may not be aware of some of the other corporations and businesses that are in financial cahoots with terrorists.

1. Tajco Ltd.—A Lebanese-based company that uses supermarkets to launder South American drug money through grocery stores in Gambia back to Lebanon for dispersal to Hezbollah. According to former Treasury official Stuart Levey, Tajco and its subsidiaries constitute a “multinational network [that] generates millions of dollars in funding and secures strategic geographical strongholds for Hizballah.”
2. Dahabshiil—A money services business (technically a remittance company, not a bank) that pays a $500K stipend twice a year to al-Shabaab. Somali journalists and musicians have alleged that the payments aren’t just for “protection,” (ie, the freedom to operate in Somalia without being bombed) but that Dahabshiil shares tribal links and policy goals with the terrorist group.
3. Al-Aqsa TV—The U.S. describes the media outlet as “a television station in Gaza financed and controlled by Hamas.” Hamas raised the initial capital to create Al-Aqsa TV, negotiated for a satellite provider, and allocates money for its budget. Its programming seeks to prepare children to join and fight for Hamas as they age.
4. Crescent Foods—the “caterers of the Muslim Brotherhood.” Crescent Foods is routinely selected to provide food at conferences and functions held by a variety of North American Muslim Brotherhood front groups and affiliates including the radical American Muslims for Palestine and organizational co-conspirators of the Holy Land Foundation, a defunct Hamas front charity. Crescent Foods also markets halal foods to the constituencies of these Islamist groups.
5. Sniper Africa—A South African hunting gear company which is majority owned by a dentist who raised $120,000 for Al Qaeda. OFAC has listed Sniper Africa under its specially designated global terrorist category.
6. Zurmat Group—A company operating in Afghanistan that sells components that wind up in roadside bombs against our troops. Additionally, the Army Times found that “approximately $1-2 million per month — flow to [the Haqqani network] to finance its activities” from Zurmat Group profits. CENTCOM describes the company as actively supporting the insurgency.
7. Darkazanli Export-Import Sonderposten—Owned and operated by Imam Mamoun Darkazanli, a longtime Al-Qaeda financier and manager. Darkazanli supports al Qaeda from Hamburg, Germany, and behaved as a type of godfather figure to the Muhammad Atta cell as it prepared for the 9/11 attacks. Darkazanli’s company has provided “cover, business collaboration and communications” for Al Qaeda figures visiting Germany.
8. The Bank of China—The Chinese bank funded Hamas and Islamic Jihad when it “carried out dozens of wire transfers for the two terror organizations, totaling several million dollars,” from 2003 to 2007 according to a lawsuit by victims of terrorist attacks in Israel. The bank knowingly continued making such transfers even after being warned against it by the Israeli government in 2005.
9. Jihad al-Bina—Hezbollah’s construction company in Lebanon. Its relationship with Hezbollah apparently transformed it from a $1.8 million business in the 1990s into a $450 million operation by 2006. It has been able to cash in on public contracts to rebuild Lebanese infrastructure through international development aid even though the firm is basically controlled by Hezbollah leaders and Iran.
10. Al Manar/Lebanese Media Group—This Hezbollah news outlet serves as a “Beacon of Hatred” that runs advertisements encouraging donations to Hezbollah and airs commercials for Hezbollah. The television channel’s programming includes vitriolic anti-Semitic messages and glorification of suicide bombing operations.

In addition to the companies above, there are conventional Western corporations like Chiquita and Echo Bay that have have paid bribes or protection money to rebels or terrorists to prevent their employees and facilities from being attacked, and banks such as HSBC that have dropped the ball on anti-money laundering, sanctions compliance, and counter-terror finance programs. This is totally unacceptable behavior which ultimately helps finance terrorism and increases the odds that more corporations will be exploited by terrorists. At the same time, it should be recognized that these abysmal compliance programs resulted from a combination of mismanagement, lousy judgments, and long-term business motives, but not because of ideological alignment with the terrorists themselves.

A final note: there was an extremely popular article within the past year circulating the Internet about corporations making money off of the global war against terrorism (which itself was only the latest in a decade-long stream of Internet tirades and social media screeds against “war profiteering” in Afghanistan and Iraq). It should just be remembered that for every company allegedly making ungodly profits from providing basic security services that there are companies like those above that are actually funding or making money directly from terrorism. So when you run across articles like that, ask yourself a question: which seems worse to you—a greedy corporation that fights terrorism, or a greedy corporation that funds terrorism?

How 2 controversial terror group conspirators profit from halal food corporate sponsorships

Crescent Foods, a major U.S. halal foods manufacturer, has partnerships with two major Islamic groups that were named as co-conspirators during the terror finance trial against the Holy Land Foundation.

Crescent Foods has sponsored an events conducted by the Council for American Islamic Relations (CAIR) and has “teamed up” with the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) to create a national halal certification board. ISNA itself describes Crescent Foods president Ahmad Adam, a Palestinian Arab American, as a “founding member” of ISNA.

Court documents showed that CAIR and ISNA conspired with HLF in sending $12 million to Hamas in the early 2000s. The HLF was shut down and its former leaders are in prison. Federal prosecutors under attorney general Eric Holder have declined to prosecute CAIR and ISNA.

In addition to its HLF links, Crescent Foods has somewhat murky relationships with undocumented charitable groups. Crescent Foods’s philanthropic activities include sponsorship of a Chicago-based entity known as “Refugee Assistance Programs” (RAP-US) on Victoria Lane in Glendale Heights. Although it solicits donations on its website, RAP-US is not a registered charity with the Illinois attorney general’s office, nor has it filed for tax-exempt status with the Internal Revenue Service. RAP-US describes itself as a member of the “Golden Door Coalition,” a similarly un-registered entity.

Crescent Foods has also supplied food at a variety of events coordinated by Islamic organizations, including “proud” sponsorship of conferences hosted by the radical American Muslims for Palestine (AMP) group.

The relationships between Crescent Foods and the HLF associates are not unique in the shadowy and lucrative world of halal certification. IFANCA, probably the most significant halal certifying entity in the U.S., is also tied to HLF co-conspirators and Muslim Brotherhood front groups. Both IFANCA and Crescent Foods have participated in ISNA’s Halal Food Forum.

The Muslim Association of Canada, a primary halal certifying entity, has given money to IRFAN, a charity which was stripped of its tax-exempt status by Canada Revenue Agency for its financial contributions to Hamas. Halal certification in France has been documented to redound primarily to the benefit of the Muslim Brotherhood.

New book: Danish company paid off imams

Arla, the Scandinavian dairy conglomerate, paid a “significant amount” of money to Gulf state imams in 2006 in exchange for a fatwa declaring Arla’s products halal.

The deal was struck in the aftermath of violent protests that followed Jyllands-Posten’s publication of cartoons depicting Muhammad. Ahmed Akkari, a Danish Muslim who originally helped inflame the “Cartoon Crisis,” makes these allegations in his new book, Min afsked fra Islamism (My departure from Islamism).

The Danish website Metroxpress explained the deal recounted in the book, in which Arla “would donate a substantial sum for a purpose of the [Islamic] scholars’ choice. In return, they would [issue] a statement saying that it is now again religiously acceptable to buy the Danish, Swedish and Norwegian dairy products.”

In other words, the scholars would bless off on Arla products in Bahrain and the UAE and help simmer down the anti-Danish sentiments that they themselves had whipped up about the cartoons in exchange for what was likely millions of Danish crowns to be spent as the imams saw fit.

The 2006 agreement may have been a violation of Denmark’s anti-corruption and anti-bribery laws. Section 299 of the Danish Criminal Code prohibits bribes among private entities in exchange for a “return commission” (ie, kickback). In this case, the return commission for the money paid to the imams was the profits earned from sales stemming from their endorsement of Arla’s products, thus giving Arla an unfair advantage in the Middle East over its competitors who did not arrange similar off-the-books payments there.

For its part, the Arla conglomerate has been arrogant and dismissive about the seriousness of the new allegations, saying that “We have decided to put the matter behind us,” and that Arla will not comment further events from eight years ago.

The cavalier attitude expressed by Arla may be indicative of the broader Danish attitude toward corporate bribery overseas. Denmark, which by most measures has very little corruption, was admonished last year by the OECD for its failure to do more to investigate allegations of foreign bribery. Danish companies were previously revealed to have paid bribes to Saddam Hussein regime officials as part of the scandal plagued UN oil-for-food program.

The 2006 agreement could also be viewed as simple extortion by the Islamic scholars. There would be a precedent for that as well:  shakedowns for halal certification against Denmark by Saudi Arabia’s Muslim World League were revealed last year. The Gulf monarchies and their elites seem to have realized that Danish companies are rather pliant to their demands.

Terror-linked halal certifier exposed

IFANCA, the main halal certification organization in the U.S., is associated with several groups and individuals who have supported terrorism either financially or verbally.

Money Jihad has previously revealed IFANCA’s links to the Saudi-based terror financing Muslim World League.  Now, FrontPage Mag has laid out additional affiliations including ISNA, the Mosque Foundation, the MSA, and NAIT in an article called “Baby Food Jihad.”

When consumers buy products with IFANCA’s crescent-M logo, that means that the food manufacturer has paid IFANCA to be inspected for halal compliance before the logo can be used.  The proceeds go toward IFANCA’s promotion of halal foods both domestically and overseas, where IFANCA is playing an increasingly active role.  The business model is very lucrative for IFANCA, especially since they pay no taxes (even though they are not a charity).

In Canada, profits from the halal certification racket have been diverted to Hamas.  Such activities by IFANCA cannot be ruled out considering the groups with whom IFANCA associates, its history of financial misrepresentations, and IFANCA’s increasing activities abroad.

An excerpt from “Baby Food Jihad” follows:

…IFANCA is working with the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) to create a national halal standards and accreditation body. In 2007 and 2008, ISNA, which was co-founded by Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) leader Sami al-Arian, was named by the United Sates Justice Department as a co-conspirator in the financing of millions of dollars to Hamas. Just this past September, the Canadian government stripped ISNA of its tax status in Canada for the financing of a Pakistani terrorist group.

IFANCA is an active member of the Council of Islamic Organizations of Greater Chicago (CIOGC). Other members include: the Mosque Foundation (MF), which has held fundraisers for individuals and groups associated with PIJ and Hamas; Islamic Relief (IR), which has been associated with al-Qaeda financing and that was named by the Israeli government a front for Hamas; Helping Hand (HH), which partnered with a Pakistani charity at the same time that charity delivered close to $100,000 to the residence of the head of Hamas, Khaled Meshaal; and the Muslim American Society (MAS), which has used the internet to propagate materials degrading women, cursing Christians, and calling for the murder of Jews and homosexuals.

IFANCA’s terror and hate-related affiliations are understandable, given the individuals who are in charge of the organization.

Muhammad Munir Chaudry is a Founding Board Member and President of IFANCA. He is listed, along with a photo, on the “Speaker” page of ISNA. Sharing the page with him are fellow ISNA speakers: Esam Omeish, who resigned from the Virginia Commission on Immigration, after videos surfaced depicting him calling for violent jihad; Nihad Awad, National Executive Director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a reported front for Hamas; Siraj Wahhaj, who was named a party to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing; and Zulfiqar Ali Shah, the former South Asia Division Coordinator for KindHearts, a charity whose funds were frozen by the U.S. Treasury Department in February 2006 for its alleged role as a Hamas financier.

Roger Othman is the Executive Director of IFANCA. According to his bio found on the IFANCA website, Othman “has served on the Board of Directors and the Executive Committee of the Mosque Foundation.” As mentioned earlier, MF has been involved in Palestinian terror-related fundraising. In July 2007, one of Othman’s fellow MF Executive Committee alumni, Muhammad Salah, was convicted of obstruction of justice for making false statements during a legal proceeding and was sentenced to 21 months in prison. According to the FBI, Salah was recruiting and training Hamas members and was raising money for Hamas.

Ahmad Hussein Sakr is a member of IFANCA’s Board of Directors and has been with IFANCA since its inception. Prior to IFANCA, he was a founding member and president of the Muslim Students Association (MSA), ISNA’s main youth group and the first major Muslim Brotherhood organization inside the U.S. Sakr also served as an officer and sat on the Board of Directors of the North American Islamic Trust (NAIT), ISNA’s financing wing. Like ISNA, NAIT was named by the United States government as a co-conspirator to the financing of Hamas. As well, Sakr served as the first director and representative of the Muslim World League (MWL), a group that has reportedly been involved in the funding of Hamas, al-Qaeda and other terrorist outfits.

Sakr is the author of the book, ‘Pork: Possible Reasons for its Prohibition.’ In it, he describes Jews as being cursed, monkey-like, filthy and corrupt. He wrote: “It is known that some of the children of Israel regularly disobeyed Allah and as a result, were cursed. Some of them stagnated spiritually and mentally and hence became idol-worshippers; others lost their mission in life as human beings and became entertainers (if such a term is to be used) like monkeys, apes and chimpanzies [sic], and still others became filthy of mind and body, gluttonous eaters of carnivorous animals, and lived totally a corrupted life as swines [sic]”…

Pay to play: Saudi Arabia shakes down Denmark for halal fees to terror-linked MWL

The Muslim World League is the primary vessel for the dissemination of oppressive Wahhabi doctrine across the world.  MWL has also worked with or helped create terrorist organizations such as JMB in Bangladesh.  Now it appears that the MWL is the beneficiary of Saudi trade scheme that requires Danish companies to pay for halal certification by the MWL in order to export its products to Saudi Arabia.

This situation is somewhat similar to halal certification fees benefiting the Muslim Brotherhood in France.  One difference is that if Saudi Arabia can force exporters to obtain halal certification from MWL chapters worldwide, that could represent a fortune in certifying fees for the MWL.

The news comes from Islam versus Europe, which translated the news from EPN, a webpage of the major Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten:

“The Saudi organization MWL is against freedom of religion, in favor of the death penalty for homosexuals – and get paid to halal approve Danish companies. Great Danish food producers such as Danish Crown, Rose Poultry and Arla are annually forced to pay thousands of dollars into the organization Muslim World League, which advocates oppression of women, the death penalty for homosexuals and the elimination of democracy. This is because Saudi Arabia requires that Danish companies that want to export halal products to the wealthy monarchy have to pay to the Danish branch of the Muslim World League in order to be halal certified.”