The Invisible Bankers (Terrorists, drug dealers and smugglers are using a global system)

Forbes ^ | Oct. 17, 2005 issue | Michael Freedman

[FairOpinion]

Terrorists, drug dealers and smugglers are using a global system as old as the Silk Road to finance their operations. And there's not much we can do about it.

Between 1995 and 2003 the Yemeni immigrant and a group of family members, friends and associates sent $22 million by way of a JPMorgan Chase bank account to countries all over the world, including Pakistan, Thailand and Yemen. Among the alleged recipients: Mohammed Ali Hassan al-Moayad, a Yemeni sheikh who boasted of his ties to Osama bin Laden and was sentenced in July to 75 years in federal prison for conspiring to finance Hamas and al Qaeda.

For law enforcement this case highlights one of the most difficult and frustrating aspects of battling international terrorism: following the flow of money that supports it. Funds used to underwrite terror frequently start off "clean" and become "dirty" much later. The sheer size of the global financial industry has confounded prosecutors' attempts at untangling the illegal use of money transfers from the innocent one of sending money home for relatives' living expenses. Tracing any of the money to an individual in a remote corner of the world is all but impossible, and just as U.S. and other Western investigators clamp down on one sort of mechanism, terrorists figure out a new scheme.

[FairOpinion]

Follow the money -- but it's not easy.

A very interesting article with more detail on how the terrorists move money around.

[Humidston]

A few years ago we were on the island of Anguilla and were shocked to see EVERY major world bank represented in the "downtown" area. ....And we're talking ruts in the roads and goats wandering everywhere.

[BamaGirl]

Fascinating. Thanks for the article.


It reminds me of Tom Clancy's book "The Teeth of the Tiger" where they track terrorists by electronic surveillance, including tracking who emails who and analyzing financial statements. Of course, they didn't mention this hawala stuff with low $$ denominations and no paper trail. No that's a hard problem.

[parisa]

Here's more follow the money:

Iranian Regime Emerges as Central Player In Probe of Money Laundering by UBS
By New York Sun - by Meghan Clyne
Oct 13, 2005

WASHINGTON - The Islamic Republic of Iran has emerged as a central player in ongoing investigations into possible money laundering by the world's largest "wealth management" firm, UBS, as congressional staff disclosed yesterday that $762 million in American currency controlled by Saddam Hussein may have made its way from the Swiss bank to Iraq via the Central Bank of Iran.

The congressional investigation will also focus on whether UBS and Swiss officials abetted an anti-American axis between Iran and Cuba.

In 2003, after American troops liberating Iraq found $762 million in American cash in Saddam's palaces, the serial numbers on the banknotes were traced to UBS, which distributed the currency as part of the Extended Custodial Inventory Program run by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.


Read the rest here:

http://www.nysun.com/article/21383

[FairOpinion]

Interesting, thanks.

[PGalt]

Thanks for posting. Great addition/link to this topic, parisa. Thanks.

[Know your rights]

drug dealers [...] are using a global system as old as the Silk Road [...] And there's not much we can do about it.

Except slash their profit margins by legalizing their product ... as we did to the rumrunners who profited from Prohibition.

[Wolfie]

I'm sure the financial centers of the world are real broken up about this. There's a reason the Chairman of the NYSE made a sales call to FARC back in 1999.

NYSE Exchange Chief Pitches Colombian Rebel Forces

Drugs And Wall Street

Dirty Money and U.S. Banks

[headsonpikes]

Eager cash makes a broker's eyes light up like nothing else.