Muslim terror groups stepping up activities in Latin America

Muslim terror groups, including Hamas and Hezbollah, have recently stepped up their efforts to consolidate their power in distant areas of Latin America, particularly in the triangle of borders of Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay, say Israeli and American security sources.

The sources in Israel confirmed information provided last week by the deputy chairman of the U.S. joint chiefs of staff, Gen. Peter Pace, who told the Armed Forces Committee in the House of Representatives that the area is a center for trade in drugs, weapons, money laundering, forgery, and activity that supports Islamic terror in Latin America.

According to Israeli sources, Hamas and Hezbollah, alongside Al-Qaida and World Jihad groups, are busy training recruits, collecting arms, and gathering intelligence about targets, including Jewish and Israeli targets. They prefer hard-to-reach areas, far from local security and law enforcement agencies, and the decision to conduct activities in Latin America, say Israeli sources, is meant to take the terror front beyond the Lebanon-Israel borders.

Major General Moshe Kaplinski, general of the Central Command, said last week during the annual intelligence assessment conducted by the army, that Israel needs to reassess its perception of Hezbollah as limited only to the north, in relation to Lebanon, Syria and Iran. He said that many of the terror attacks in the territories are now carried out under explicit instructions from Hezbollah, including orders as specific as "which explosives should be given to which bomber and where they should go."

In testimony given to Congress in December last year, George Glass, director of The Office of Terrorism Finance and Sanctions Policy, said that the establishment of joint working groups including the State Department, Treasury and Justice Department representatives, has raised the stakes for groups like Hamas, which until last year could still enjoy relatively easy transfer of charity funding.

Glass said that Hamas assets were frozen by presidential order last August, and noted that the president specified six Hamas leaders as terrorists - Ahmed Yassin, Khaled Meshal, Moussa Abu Razek, Imad al-Almi, Osama Hamdan, and Abdel Sziz Rantisi. "Hamas bombings demonstrate the group's commitment to undermining any real efforts to move toward a permanent peace between Israel and the Palestinians. Shutting off the flow of funds to Hamas is crucial to reducing Hamas' ability to carry out activities," said Glass.

Despite the open hostility between Hamas and the Bush administration, Israeli security sources say that it was the Popular Resistance Committee, and not Hamas, which was responsible for the bombing last year of an American convoy in Gaza, in which three American security guards were killed. The Popular Resistance Committee in Gaza. Hamas, Glass added, is threatening the chances for reforms in the Palestinian Authority.

Been there, done that, had the T-shirt stolen off my back. This is a scary enough part of the planet even without Islamic terrorists.

There is a large Islamic presence in Ciudad del Este, Paraguay and Foz do Iguazu, Brazil. Mostly they seem to be involved in running small retail operations - perfect for smuggling and money laundering. There are no border checkpoints between CdE and Foz - you just walk across the bridge. Going into Argentina they at least check your passport. The borders are wide open because of the MERCOSUR/MERCOSUL accord, which is similar to NAFTA.

Interesting to note that it was in Foz last week that a sub-genius American tourist was fined for flipping off a Brazilian immigration agent.

Money laundering, mostly drug money laundering, is what keeps most banks in Latin America, foreign and domestic, afloat. Drug money, terrorist money, what's the difference if you're Citicorp?

Ciudad del Este

Barely 20km from Brazil's natural wonder, Iguaçú Falls, just inside Paraguay, lies Latin America's most notorious illegal trade port, Ciudad del Este. Paraguay was recently labeled the 2nd most corrupt nation in a survey of 85 countries, and Ciudad del Este is largely responsible for this nasty reputation. The city was the brainchild of the former dictator Strossener, who built an economy based on illegal trade and money laundering. Paraguay provides offshore banking services and a personal tax-free environment. A total of 55 different banks crowd the streets of Ciudad del Este, with a population of only 300,000. Three businesses dominate the local economy: smuggling imported goods into Brazil and Argentina, pirating software and music for re-sale throughout Latin America (most notably Brazil), and laundering money generated through cocaine production in Colombia, Bolivia and Peru. With an economy of only $9 Billion USD annually, Paraguay exports an estimated $14 billion in contraband and pirated products each year, mostly to Brazil.

In 1997, Ciudad del Este banks laundered an estimated $45 billion of ill-gotten funds. The three elements of smuggling, money laundering and piracy work in concert. Drug money is used to buy imported Asian electronics as well as European liquor and perfume, which are smuggled into Brazil, where high import duties invite corruption. Drug money also purchases stolen cars and cheap cigarettes from Brazil and Argentina for re-sale in Paraguay or for shipment elsewhere. Other monies find their way into the town's proliferating piracy business, which now rivals those of the Orient. Of the 60 million pirate cassettes sold in Brazil in 1997, it is estimated that half came from Paraguay.

The biggest victims of Ciudad del Este are legitimate companies, especially those working in or trying to penetrate the Brazilian market. Brazil's failure to crack down on practices that clearly threaten its economy and bleed away badly needed import duty revenues has driven speculation about Brazilian government collusion.

http://tendencias.infoamericas.com/article_archive/2000/0700/0700_regional_trends.htm

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