Terror funding: Legitimate transfers for an illegitimate act
Mumbai, Oct 26: An amount of 25,000 US dollars or Rs 16,23,625 was
received by a person to set up a travel office in Mumbai and
investigations show that this was just a front to facilitate the travel
for terror funders.
Terror funding into India has become a matter of primary concern and the
Financial Action Task Force has indicated that it is groups such as the
Lashkar-e-Taiba and Harkat-ul-Jihadi Islami which are the primary
players.
Source: http://www.oneindia.com/india/terror-funding-legitimate-transfers-for-an-illegitimate-act-1909482.html
There are newer methods that are being adopted by terror financers
and the indication is that they are gradually doing away with illegal
forms of money transfer.
In short the transfer of money for terror purposes is made to look as
legitimate as possible, an officer of the Intelligence Bureau (Financial
Wing) informed OneIndia.
Legitimate fund transfers
There are new methods that have been found for transferring money meant
for subversive purposes.
OneIndia had reported (Crowd-funding
advertisements could be the next terror fund raiser) that crowd-funding
advertisements could be the next source of terror funding.
However an investigation that was conducted into the transfer of money
to Mumbai to set up a travel office suggested that bitcoins and paypal
were methods used to move the funds. This particular operation involved
nine persons- six Indians, one Pakistani and one US and Canadia citizen.
All were members of the Lashkar and they had over the past three years
regularly sent money in Euros and US dollars. Although investigators are
ascertaining how money in total had been sent in, there was one
particular transaction which was worth 25,000 US dollars.
The money investigators say was being used for various purposes. There
were funds being transferred for plotting strikes, setting up offices
and fronts and also recruitments.
The strange part of these transactions was that all were legitimate in
nature unlike what one would find a few years back where hawala was the
key method for fund transfer.
New methods of fund transfer
Earlier one would see that terror groups heavily depended on hawala for
money transfer. Money would be collected through private donations by
setting up charity groups and then routed in to India through a hawala
channel.
However all that is slowly changing and terror groups realizing that
these methods have become easily traceable for the Intelligence Bureau
have now adopted new strategy.
Crowd-funding advertisements are one form of collecting money. They set
up an advertisement claiming that money is being collected for refugees
and one the funds come in, the same is routed into a terror channel.
Off late, the use of PayPal to transfer money has become hugely popular
with terror groups. In addition to this, they are also using bitcoins
and CashU to transfer money, the Intelligence Bureau has also learnt.
The modus operandi becomes clear and when it comes to such legitimate
forms of money transfer, the radar of the IB is normally low. All eyes
are focused on illegal forms of money transfer such as hawala and terror
groups are well aware of this.
The IB says that their job has only become more complex now. Terror
groups will juggle between the legitimate and illegitimate forms of
money transfer to confuse the Intelligence agencies.
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