Talk:Terrorism financing

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  This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 3 January 2019 and 27 April 2019. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Oalynch.

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This article looks suspicious like something that has been "cut and pasted" from another source, probably a speech or article made by law enforcement. I have no problem with taking a framework from somewhere else, but it lacks neutrality or sources. Phrases like...

• "Saudi Arabian charities, which were prime sponsors of terrorist groups around the world, are now under much tighter controls albeit there is still a lot to do"
• "Looking into the near future, if terrorist groups are replaced by smaller, decentralized groups"
• "Terrorists are now working with drug traffickers and criminals to make and launder the proceeds of crime like fraud, prostitution, intellectual property theft, smuggling - this is now routine for them"

...need to have a source to have credibility. These statements are unsourced, and so represent at best speculation or at worst merely the writer's POV.

Statements like:

"In addition to normal AML controls, banks must focus on the CFT angle with renewed vigor and knowledge derived from the extensive databank of case studies now available. Banks must focus on not just name matching with sanctions databases but also with other know your customer (KYC) high-risk databases of good third party vendors. They must use technologies like link analysis to establish second and third level links that identify transactions as potentially suspicious from a CFT perspective. Focus on preventing identity theft is an integral part of any CFT program."

should just be left where they came from - a policeman's speech.

I think to be balanced the article should probably also express the alternative view of US attempts to crack down on terrorist financing, viz., that they have been at enormous cost to banks (and hence their customers) but are felt by many to have had no visible effect (see: Looking in the wrong places, The Economist, Oct 20th 2005 - Why hindering flows across international financial networks is costly and does not stop terrorists' primary activity - Link).

Others point out that several reports were filed with the regulatory authorities in the US relating to the September 11 hijackers and their suspicious banking transactions, but because of the width of the regulations then (they are even wider now) the number of reports being made were so vast, the reports relating to Mohammed Atta and his associates were never followed up on - the overwhelming amount of regulation on this has become counterproductive and led to a CYA approach by banks that actually hinders law enforcement.

It also repeats one my pet peeves - that terrorist financing and money laundering are linked. They are not - they are polar opposites (which I stuck a para in to clarify). What is true is that there is evidence that Islaamic terrorists are increasingly finding funds from criminal acitivities (as Irish terrorists have done for decades), but the money is not laundered for re-integration - it is just used to perpetrate terrorist attacks.

We have needed an article on terrorist financing for a long time, and I am glad someone has finally put one down, but I feel it needs to be sharpened up a bit to meet Wikipedia standards.

Legis 12:39, 24 May 2006 (UTC)Reply

Is this article properly titled? Would something like 'US anti-terrorism financing activity' be better? (I added a {{global}} tag). RJFJR (talk) 22:02, 11 February 2010 (UTC)Reply

I agree - the bulk of the content is US-biased. I don't think "US anti-terrorism financing activity" would be a good title as it's not about financing anti-terrorism! It's not just "US terrorism" either (e.g. Al-Qaeda isn't US oriented); it's more "What the US is doing to prevent the financing of terrorism after 9/11". Perhaps "US anti-financing terrorism post 9/11"? Nuwewsco (talk) 18:39, 12 July 2010 (UTC)Reply

If we're changing the title anyway, it should be "funding", not "financing". The difference is subtle, perhaps, but significant. uFu (talk) 22:50, 31 December 2020 (UTC)Reply

I removed this section from the article, as it's unsourced, uses controversial phrases and doesn't seem to make narrative sense.

"The future of terrorist financing Looking into the near future, if terrorist groups are replaced by smaller, decentralized groups, the premise that terrorists need a financial support network may become outdated. Nevertheless, policing religious groups involvement in terrorism is difficult largely because of their non-profit status in most nations. If they were required to pay taxes then monitoring Churches and Mosques could be more easily done. This is likely to become law as the Islamic War on Civilization progresses."

217.43.111.82 (talk) 16:47, 28 March 2010 (UTC)Reply

From the intro paragraph: "Terrorist financing came into limelight after the events of terrorism on 9/11"

That's not true! At least, it's misleading to phrase it this way, as it suggests that noone thought, knew, or cared about the subject until 9/11. Certainly it was an issue raised after the twin towers came down, but criminal and terrorist financing has definitly been in the public eye long, long before then (e.g. how the IRA were financed.)

I think this should be changed to something less US-centric and more WP:WORLDVIEW, though I'm not sure how to phrase it. Any suggestions? Nuwewsco (talk) 18:33, 12 July 2010 (UTC)Reply

I think this article is a good general summary of theory and practices on AML and CFT despite it's lack of supporting citations and agenda tone. If you've been regulated by any of the many agencies who deal with these topics you know that the behavior described is accurate.

However, my issue with this article is that it doesn't explore the single most powerful mechanism available to governments and regulators--the secondary boycott of non-complying banks which transact (mostly through correspondent relationships) with banks and financial institutions which enable AML and CFT. In 2006, the Treasury identified a bank in Macau which was transacting for North Korea in their nuclear proliferation activities. Treasury designated the bank persona non grata in the US AND indicated to all other institutions that any institution trading with the Macau bank would be considered equally culpable. This include some fairly large and otherwise respectable Singapore banks who dropped Macau like a hot potato following the treasury's pronouncement. This kind of action is very effective in immediately isolating the AML enablers because it raises the risk of continuing to deal with a rouge bank and increases the costs of doing so to unacceptable levels.

--I am a former bank executive, chief compliance and AML executive of US finacial institutions — Preceding unsigned comment added by Thomas J Gallagher (talk • contribs) 02:19, 15 January 2015 (UTC)Reply

Much of this text belongs to Alpha Editions, and stems from the book The Financing of Terrorism By Dr. Nitin Prasad. Sections are verbetim copy paste.

https://books.google.no/books?id=W7qfCwAAQBAJ&printsec=copyright&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false — Preceding unsigned comment added by Heimsyn (talk • contribs) 13:18, 4 March 2020 (UTC)Reply