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No Money for Terror is a slogan launched in April 2018 as part of the fight against Daesh and Al-Qaeda. It was then pretty much forgotten amid the health and energy crises, but it is now back in the public eye.
With the world in turmoil due to the war in Ukraine, the crises in Africa and the war in Gaza, a recent special meeting in Riyadh of the Gulf States’ Terrorist Financing Targeting Center went largely unnoticed. The meeting coincided with a speech by US deputy treasury secretary Wally Adeyemo in which he stepped up the pressure on his European allies by making the fight against terrorist financing an absolute priority.
While talking about terrorist financing is of the utmost importance, taking tangible action is even more crucial. For experts in the war on terrorism, the battle against terrorist financing is paramount. Terrorism is funded through financial crime and money laundering, which is why combating financial crime must be made an international priority.
Hezbollah, the Muslim Brotherhood and its Palestinian branch Hamas form an international network of crime and terror. Questions should be asked about how they are funded by states such as Iran (Hezbollah), Qatar (Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood), and Turkiye.
The financing mechanisms used also raise questions, and the use of crypto assets is clearly a matter for regulation.
Last month a bipartisan group of 105 US senators and congressional representatives urged the Biden administration to swiftly crack down on the use of cryptocurrencies by Hamas and its affiliates. Earlier, in July, four US senators — Elizabeth Warren, Roger Marshall, Joe Manchin and Lindsey Graham — reintroduced legislation aimed at closing gaps in the existing framework countering money laundering and terrorism financing as it applies to digital assets. The bill was first proposed in December 2022, but lacked widespread support and stalled in the Senate. Since then it has gained more widespread backing.
At least four years ago the Financial Action Task Force, the global money laundering and terrorist financing watchdog, identified the conversion interfaces between crypto assets and legal tender currencies as the main risk in terms of money laundering and terrorist financing. This underscores the importance of regulating the exchange platforms and other conversion intermediaries that facilitate money laundering.
Nonetheless, crypto assets are enjoying spectacular growth: according to CoinMarketCap, in April 2023 there were 23,642 crypto assets, or cryptocurrencies, worth more than €1 billion. In 2023, 46 million Americans are thought to possess Bitcoin. We know that Iran, for example, uses Bitcoin to circumvent international embargoes, and that Hamas used it to finance its attack on Israel on Oct. 7.
The international community must act, swiftly and with discernment, as the alarm bells are now ringing. No Money for Terror must become more than just a slogan.
Nathalie Goulet
While there is no doubt that this issue should be taken extremely seriously, it is clear that political will is held back by the high financial stakes involved. Ultimately, the international community may end up confronting the reality through bloodshed and tears. It is a fine balancing act, where the goal is to keep commercial activity moving while preventing money from being diverted to terrorist causes.
The alarm has been raised and international bodies are on the alert. We will no doubt need to keep a close eye on the initiative backed by the coalition of US senators. They were also probably affected by the collapse of the cryptocurrency exchange FTX, whose director Sam Bankman-Fried faces decades in prison after being convicted of conspiracy and fraud.
The FTX affair also highlights the role that tax havens continue to play in the opacity of global financial markets, which the international community appears to accept. The battle against tax havens that facilitate the most reprehensible money-laundering operations is only a priority in speeches made at official events. Out in the real world, the international community has no qualms about these pockets of lawlessness, even when they are found at the heart of Europe, in places such as Jersey.
There has been one scandal after another — Offshore Leaks (April 2013), Luxleaks (November 2014), SwissLeaks (February 2015), Panama Papers”(April 2016), Paradise Papers (October 2017), West Africa Leaks (May 2018), CumEx-Files (October 2018), Pandora Papers (October 2021). They are all over the media for a few days or weeks, especially if a politician or media personality is involved, and then it all blows over. The outrage fizzles out.
Yet Europol identified more than 3,400 likely matches between its criminal database and the list of offshore companies in the Panama Papers, including 1,722 linked to money laundering and 116 linked to terrorism.
So why has no serious action been taken? Because the financial stakes are too high! But international terrorism strikes in unpredictable and indiscriminate fashion, and no one is immune from a new wave of attacks.
The international community must act, swiftly and with discernment, as the alarm bells are now ringing. No Money for Terror must become more than just a slogan.
- Nathalie Goulet is a French senator for the Orne department in Normandy, and the author of “An ABC of Terrorist Financing,” published by Cherche-Midi. X: @senateur61