Terror planner says Pakistan paid him

David Headley, a Pakistani with U.S. citizenship, served as the lead scout for the Nov. 26 terrorist attacks against Mumbai, India.  Headley was convicted for his crimes in the U.S. in 2013.  As evidence at his trial indicated, Headley was paid by the ISI, Pakistan’s spy agency, to conduct the Mumbai reconnaissance.  Headley has repeated this version of events again during remote video testimony for his trial in India.  Headley also worked for the Islamic terrorist group Lashkar-e-Taiba.  What does that tell you about the shared interests of the ISI and the LeT?

From Foreign Policy‘s South Asia Daily brief:

David Headley: ISI paid me for reconnaissance for 26/11 targets

A U.S. citizen convicted for his role in the 2008 Mumbai attacks told an Indian court on Thursday that the Pakistani intelligence service ISI paid him directly for reconnaissance of target for the 26/11 attacks (CNN-IBN). In his testimony given through video link from the United States, Headley claimed that he was given one hundred thousand Pakistani rupees to scout National Defence College, Chabad House, and other places in Mumbai. Last month, Headley also told the court that he had visited India seven times prior to the attack, on behalf of the banned Pakistani militant organization Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), to gather information scouting potential target locations in Mumbai ahead of the attacks. Headley, 52, was captured in 2013 in the United States and plead guilty to charges of working with LeT and his involvement in the attacks, to avoid the death penalty and extradition to India. The November 2008 attacks in Mumbai were a coordinated set of strikes on the railway station, luxury hotels and a Jewish cultural center, and claimed 166 lives along with nine attackers.

Pakistan keeps protecting rich Islamic terrorists

Terror mogul Dawood Ibrahim has left Karachi in southern Pakistan for Murree in northern Pakistan.  Indian news sources say that this move was ordered by Pakistan’s spy agency, the ISI, which has long sheltered Dawood.  Maybe this means India was getting close to figuring out exactly where Dawood was.

Pakistan granted a haven to Osama Bin Laden.  They’re doing the same thing with Dawood Ibrahim.  Whatever happened to “You’re either with us or against us in the fight against terror”?  Is granting a safe harbor to successive multi-millionaire Islamic terrorists a sign of being “with us”?

From India.com (hat tip to El Grillo):

Dawood Ibrahim shifted from Karachi by Pakistan?

New Delhi/ Islamabad, Aug 24: Underworld don Dawood Ibrahim has been shifted from his Karachi residence to other safe place by Pakistan authorities and ISI, according to reports. India’s most wanted criminal, Dawood Ibrahim along with his wife and daughter was shifted from Karachi to country’s North region Muri.

The latest development came after Indian government prepared a dossier showing Dawood Ibrahim’s several residences in Pakistan. Dawood had been in Muri earlier where the ISI has its safe houses. As per reports, the mastermind of 1993 Mumbai serial blasts and Dawood’s brother, Anees Ibrahim with his family have reportedly been shifted from his current location.

In evidence to show that Dawood Ibrahim is holed up in Pakistan, a dossier prepared by India listed nine residences of the underworld don in that country and stated that he is known to frequently change his locations and addresses there. Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh, meanwhile, said that Dawood is permanently living in Pakistan though he may be changing locations in that country…

China fails to fool FATF body on Pakistan’s terror financing

India has blocked a Chinese maneuver within the Asia Pacific Group on Money Laundering to white-list Pakistan.

That would be the same Pakistan that created the Taliban, harbored Osama bin Laden, and is probably protecting terrorist fat cat Dawood Ibrahim.  Pakistan funnels millions of dollars through its ISI spy service to terrorist and militant groups in Afghanistan, Kashmir, and beyond.  Pakistan is well-known for corruption, graft, and slipshod tax administration.  China sought to shield Pakistan from any scrutiny of its abysmal counter-terror finance and anti-money laundering programs purely for geopolitical purposes.  Kudos to India for keeping the pressure on.

From TNN on June 30 (hat tip @TerrorismWatch):

India blocks China’s bid to save Pakistan on terror finance scrutiny

NEW DELHI: Pakistan’s enforcement of UN financial sanctions against terrorism will be closely monitored by Financial Action Task Force (FATF) through its associate body, the Asia Pacific Group on Money Laundering (APG), after India successfully blocked China’s attempt at a recent FATF meet in Brisbane to save non-FATF member Pakistan from such scrutiny.

FATF is a policy-making body whose objectives include setting standards to combat money laundering and the financing of terrorism and supporting implementation of these standards. APG on money laundering, somewhat of a mini-FATF of which Pakistan is a member, is committed to the effective implementation and enforcement of standards set by FATF.

According to sources in the government, India, with the support of allies like the US, managed to derail China’s bid which was backed by Australia to shield Pakistan on terror financing. The FATF meet agreed with India’s argument that Pakistan, despite not being part of FATF, was part of APG which works in close collaboration with FATF, and its enforcement of targeted financial sanctions against terrorism should be subject to monitoring by FATF through the APG.

At the FATF meeting last week, India and the US spoke up against Pakistan’s lack of conviction in implementing anti-terror financial sanctions by freezing assets or attaching properties of 26/11 masterminds Hafiz Saeed and Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi and 1993 Mumbai blasts accused Dawood Ibrahim etc. China, however, argued that Pakistan was doing enough and reporting on the action taken to APG.

India was not satisfied with the report submitted by Pakistan to APG as it listed only unnamed accounts, without identifying their origins and their implications for the group’s functioning. This was despite India furnishing enough details on Falah-e-Insaniyat, linked to LeT and Jamaat-ud-Dawah, publicly raising funds. Similar fund-raising at Hafiz Saeed’s rallies was also highlighted.

Dawood targets the poor for money mule scheme

Dawood Ibrahim, the international fugitive, terrorist financier, and underworld kingpin, is reportedly opening bank accounts in India through unsuspecting depositors. Dawood and his “D-Gang” agents are offering money to poor people in rural areas to open new bank accounts under their own names, then turn their ATM cards back over to Dawood’s operatives. Compliance standards at rural banks are considered to be less stringent than big city bank standards. This suggests that the rural banks are not as likely to file suspicious activity reports with India’s financial regulatory authority. D-Gang has managed to launder 59,000 crore Indian rupees (940 million USD) through such schemes.

From OneIndia News on Mar. 16 (h/t Arun):

…How is the money deposited in banks:

The Enforcement Directorate which has been probing a series of such cases has found that most of the money is parked in the nationalized banks.

Out of the 1600 branches in which the money has been parked, 900 branches belong to the nationalized banks, an ED official informed Oneindia.

The money which is earned through various illegal means such as drug and arms trade and even lottery scams are parked directly into the nationalized banks by agents of the underworld.

These agents never open accounts in their own name. They target people who are in need of money and ask them to deposit the money into their accounts.

It has been found during the investigation that persons in need of money are asked to first open accounts and they are paid a sum for the same.

They are then given money and asked to deposit the same. For every transaction of Rs 100,000, the original account holder is paid a sum of Rs 5,000.

The ATM cards are handed over to the agents who use it to draw the money when ever they like…

“Whenever they like” meaning for whatever purpose or plot Dawood intends.

Lashkar-e-Taiba front charity expands footprint

Just as the terrorist group Hamas provides some social services in order to retain the loyalty of Palestinian Arabs, the jihadist group Lashkar-e-Taiba is expanding medical services to residents of Pakistan through its Jamaat-ud-Dawa front charity. (And the government of Pakistan is okay with that.)  The move also dovetails with one of Osama Bin Laden’s final wishes, which was for Al Qaeda to provide humanitarian services in order to win the hearts and minds of middle-of-the-road Muslims.

From NYT News Service:

In Pakistan, a charity project points to official tolerance of militants

KARACHI: Violence and mayhem are the hallmarks of Lashkar-e-Taiba, the Pakistani group that waged the deadly 2008 Mumbai attacks. But this week, the group publicly expanded its operations in an entirely different domain: health care.

On Monday, Lashkar’s founder, Hafiz Saeed, inaugurated an ambulance service run by the group’s charity wing, Jamaat-ud-Dawa, in the bustling port city of Karachi. Two days later a fleet of gleaming new vans, emblazoned with the charity’s distinctive flag and loaded with stretchers still wrapped in plastic, were parked outside the group’s Karachi headquarters, waiting to make their first runs to hospitals on this city’s often chaotic streets.

The group already operates a similar service in 100 towns and cities across Pakistan, a spokesman for the charity said, and was seeking donations to help fund the new service in Karachi.

Even as Pakistan is experiencing a wave of anti-militant sentiment after the Pakistani Taliban’s massacre of schoolchildren in Peshawar last month, the aggressively public profile of Lashkar-e-Taiba, particularly through its Jamaat-ud-Dawa affiliate, suggests that some militant groups still enjoy official tolerance.

In fact, some analysts saw the unveiling of the ambulance service this week as a calculated rebuke to speculation that the Pakistani authorities were finally going to enforce international sanctions against Jamaat-ud-Dawa…

Hat tip to Rushette.

U.S. takes aim at Dawood Ibrahim’s brother

New sanctions have been slapped against underworld crime boss and terrorist mastermind Dawood Ibrahim’s network by U.S. Treasury Department. One of the targets of the sanctions is Dawood’s brother Anees, who has at various times been erroneously reported as dead. Dawood was the mastermind and financier of the 1993 Mumbai bombings that killed 257 people. The expansion of sanctions against his gang speaks to an improving diplomatic relationship between the U.S. and India, and to a souring relationship with Pakistan where Dawood is currently being sheltered.

Here are the details from Treasury:

Treasury Sanctions Two Indian Nationals and a Company Based in Pakistan for Ties to the South Asian Criminal Network ‘D Company’

1/16/2015

Action Targets Long-Time Members of D Company and a Paper Mill Controlled by One of the Designated Individuals

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Department of the Treasury today announced the designation of two Indian nationals and one entity in Pakistan as Specially Designated Narcotics Traffickers pursuant to the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act (Kingpin Act) due to their ties to D Company, a South Asian criminal organization led by Dawood Ibrahim.  As a result of today’s action, all assets of those designated that are based in the United States or are in the control of U.S. persons are frozen, and U.S. persons are generally prohibited from engaging in transactions with them.

D Company is a transnational crime syndicate that principally operates in India, Pakistan, and the United Arab Emirates.  D Company is involved in a variety of criminal activities, including narcotics trafficking, extortion, smuggling, and contract killings.  Dawood Ibrahim and other leaders of D Company are the subjects of INTERPOL Red Notices for their suspected involvement in the 1993 terrorist bombings in Mumbai, India in which 257 people were killed.  In October 2003, the Treasury Department named Dawood Ibrahim as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist, and in June 2006, the United States named both Dawood Ibrahim and D Company as Significant Foreign Narcotics Traffickers pursuant to the Kingpin Act.  Additionally, in May 2012, Treasury designated two senior D Company lieutenants, Chhota Shakeel and Ibrahim “Tiger” Memon, under the Kingpin Act.

“Today, the United States is targeting D Company, a violent organization notorious for its drug trafficking activities and terrorism,” said Adam J. Szubin, Director of the Office of Foreign Assets Control.  “Combatting transnational organized crime is a top U.S. priority, and we will continue to expose the activities of D Company and the underpinnings of criminal financial networks worldwide.”

Today’s action targets two long-time members of D Company, Shaikh Anis Ibrahim Kaskar (Anis Ibrahim), the brother of Dawood Ibrahim, and Aziz Moosa Bilakhia (Bilakhia), both Indian nationals.  Anis Ibrahim is known to be involved in narcotics trafficking, extortion, contract killings, and money laundering on behalf of D Company.  Anis Ibrahim is also accused of involvement in the 1993 Mumbai blasts.  Today’s action also targets Mehran Paper Mill, a Kotri City, Pakistan-based paper company owned or controlled by Anis Ibrahim.

Bilakhia works directly for Anis and Dawood Ibrahim and manages extortion, enforcement, and debt collection activities for D Company.  Bilakhia has been involved with D Company since at least the 1993 Mumbai bombings, for which he is wanted by Indian authorities…

Outfoxing jihadi financiers: news reading tips

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• A Democrat congressman recently planned to speak at an event with a Taliban fundraiser… more>>

• Too often, organized smuggling networks simply aren’t prosecuted… more>>

• A Pakistani boatload of terrorists self-detonated off India’s waters. Most Indian media and officials agree that a terrorist plot was foiled in the process, except for the Indian Express which claimed the offenders were just petty smugglers. A blogger carefully dismantles the Indian Express’s version of events… more>>

Boko Haram targets India for drug dealing income

The jihadist group Boko Haram killed up to 2,000 people in northeastern Nigeria last week. The operation would have cost Boko Haram a great deal of money in terms of arming and paying wages to their fighters. Boko Haram is known previously to have sustained itself through jizya, robberies, military depot raids, zakat from supporters, arms trafficking, and drug smuggling through West Africa.

But a new vector for Boko Haram’s drug racket may be emerging in India. Fugitive terrorist and underworld kingpin Dawood Ibrahim, who is currently being given safe haven in Pakistan, is facilitating Boko Haram’s entry into the illegal drug racket in South Asia according to news outlets there. Times Now reported last fall that the Pakistani spy agency ISI arranged for a meeting between Dawood’s brother, Anees Ibrahim, and Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau, which has already started yielding profits for Dawood’s “D-Gang” and Boko Haram. Roll tape:

Nigerian drug dealers are especially active in Goa and Mumbai.

SIMI takes page from Al Qaeda financial playbook

The Student Islamic Movement of India is copying old Al Qaeda financial tactics including forgery, counterfeiting, and keeping a stash cash on hand, according to South Asian news sources.  In and of itself this might not be so alarming considering that Al Qaeda central never made very much money relative to more “traditional” terrorist groups like Hamas and Hezbollah, but Al Qaeda’s ISIS stepchild has shown that major terrorist movements can spring from relatively humble financial origins.

Earlier this year we reported that SIMI may have amassed a $20 million nest egg for future operations.  Taken together, this news may suggest growing financial sophistication on SIMI’s part.  Would have blogged about this sooner but other news kept coming up. From TNN two months ago:

SIMI fugitives operated on al-Qaida pattern

They followed the methods mentioned in the al-Qaida training manual. The manual was first implemented by al-Qaida while bombing US embassy in Kenya in 1998. It was produced as evidence in the case’s trial by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in 2001. FBI had first seized it from the laptop of an alleged al-Qaida operative in Manchester in UK.

The manual has notes on counterfeiting and forgery, security measures for undercover activities, and strategies in the case of arrest and indictment.

The way Students Islamic Movement of India operatives functioned shows they followed the manual in toto, say investigators following them. It guides on details like location of the hideout, lifestyle to be followed by operatives and keeping sufficient cash ready. Police had recovered Rs 9 lakh [14K USD] the SIMI fugitives had handed over to two persons in Bijnor with the promise that they would collect the cash when required. The manual also cautions operatives against living together and that all of the group members need not be aware of where the others are holed up.

Al-Qaida has already announced its intention to revive Islamist terrorism, which has ebbed in India following a crackdown on Indian Mujahideen cadres. Now, SIMI elements are being warmed up to replace them. While IM supports the Iraq-based ISIS, the SIMI operatives have cozied up to al-Qaida.

In the recent past, there have been reports that Qaidat al-Jihad or al-Qaida in Indian Subcontinent (AQIS), a new outfit of al-Qaida, is setting up roots in India by recruiting operatives from IM and SIMI, to use their network…

Modi cocks gun and takes aim at illicit money

Newly elected prime minister Narendra Modi is reportedly putting the finishing touches on a new framework to tackle illicit money in India. While some of the new task force’s work will probably be geared toward ferretting out money allegedly stashed in Swiss bank accounts by political opponents, their objectives will also include the detection of hawala and terrorist financing.

Illicit money has been flowing into India from Kashmir and Pakistan for years under the Congress party’s nose. Modi’s BJP party must act as quickly as possible in order to begin reversing that.

Thanks to Sumon Chakraborty for sending this in from India Today:

Black money: Modi’s task force is almost ready

It could be the first big step from PM-designate Narendra Modi to bring back black money stashed abroad.

Sources in central agencies tell Indiatoday.in that a framework for a new task force to deal with black money has been prepared.

“Under the directions of senior officials of Department of Revenue, this task force has been created. It will be headed by the Financial Intelligence Unit,” said an official, requesting anonymity.

Central agencies such as the Enforcement Directorate, the Income Tax Department and Directorate of Revenue Intelligence are the members of the task force.

The task force will deal with black money derived from corruption, money laundering, hawala, terrorist financing or through off-shoring of wealth via tax havens.

Terrorist tycoon ‘mortally afraid’ of Modi

Terrorist billionaire and organized crime kingpin Dawood Ibrahim is said to be “mortally afraid” of India’s newly elected prime minister, Narendra Modi.  So much so that he has fled his longtime safe haven in Karachi for a city within the Taliban’s control on Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan.  Such a move suggests that Dawood Ibrahim is paying off the Taliban as an extra layer of security protection–a potentially highly lucrative arrangement for the Taliban.

As Money Jihad predicted at the end of last year, Modi’s election would, “represent a significant threat to the established criminal and terrorist underworld in India and Kashmir that are being backed by Pakistan.”  More recently, Modi has promised to crack down on illicit money, hawala, and tax evasion.  At long last, Dawood can see the writing on the wall.

From DNA on May 20 (hat tip to @RushetteNY):

Scared of Narendra Modi, Dawood Ibrahim, gang members go in hiding

Tuesday, 20 May 2014 | S Balakrishnan

With Narendra Modi all set to become the prime minister, India’s most-wanted don, Dawood Ibrahim, has relocated himself to an unknown location close to the Af-Pak border, which is under the Taliban. His base has been in Karachi.

During the poll campaign, Modi had told a Gujarati news channel that he would bring Dawood to India from Pakistan if he comes to power. Now that Modi is in power, the general expectation of the intelligence community is that he will tighten the screws on Dawood. Fearing a commando-type operation, Dawood is believed to have shifted his base to a remote corner and got the ISI to beef up his security.

“With Modi coming to power, he is mortally afraid,” an intelligence official said. It is expected that Modi may seek the services of Ajit Doval, retired chief of the Intelligence Bureau (IB) who is known for his brilliant operational capabilities, to zero in on the don. Doval is currently associated with the Vivekananda centre in New Delhi.

BJP has already started adopting a strong position vis-a-vis Pakistan. In a recent TV debate, senior BJP leader Nitin Gadkari made it clear that the new government will have “zero tolerance” to terrorism. He said the response of the new dispensation will be vastly different from that of the erstwhile Manmohan Singh-led UPA government, which was afraid to strike.

Sushilkumar Shinde, home minister in the UPA government, had only talked about bringing Dawood back to India and had claimed that the government was in touch with the FBI for it. But RK Singh, who was the then Union home secretary and is currently with BJP, had pooh-poohed Shinde’s claim. Singh too is known to be keen on targeting Dawood and is expected to help the new government in it.

It’s not only Dawood who has done the vanishing act, even many members of his gang in Mumbai have pulled out of the metropolis. Though the police is under the Congress-NCP-led Maharashtra government, central agencies can pick up people suspected of links with terror networks and organised crime.

Former IPS officer YC Pawar, the man who effected the first breakthrough in the investigation into the March 1993 Mumbai serial blasts masterminded by Dawood in tandem with Pakistan’s ISI, is of the opinion that the don can indeed be brought to India. He had told dna recently: “Modi is a man of tremendous will power and a go-getter. These qualities are needed at the topmost level to operationalise a plan to eject Dawood out of Pakistan. I am not saying this as a member of BJP but as a professional cop who has dealt with organised crime for several years”…