[citation needed] As of 24 October 2019, the FATF blacklist (Call for action nations) only listed two countries for terrorism financing: North Korea and Iran; while the FATF greylist (Other monitored jurisdictions) had 12 countries: Pakistan (see Pakistan and state-sponsored terrorism), Bahamas, Botswana, Cambodia, Ghana, Iceland, Mongolia, Panama, Syria, Trinidad and Tobago, Yemen, and Zimbabwe.
Initially, the focus of CTF efforts was on non-profit organizations, unregistered money services businesses (MSBs) (including so-called underground banking or ‘Hawalas’) and the criminalisation of the act itself.
They are also able to find funds through criminal activity on the internet such as stealing online banking information from people who are not correlated to these terrorist organizations.
An in-depth study of the symbiotic relationship between organised crime and terrorist organizations detected within the United States and other countries referred to as crime-terror nexus points has been published in the forensic literature.
[9][10][11][12][13][14] The Perri, Lichtenwald and MacKenzie article emphasizes the importance of multi-agency working groups and the tools that can be used to identify, infiltrate, and dismantle organizations operating along the crime-terror nexus points.
"AML and CTF both carry the notion of Know Your Customer (KYC), this entails financial organizations to have in-person identification and to observe the lawfulness of the transaction in question.
Although this methodology is not favoured by banks, lawyers or other professionals who are able to see the transaction of money or legal aid occurring, because of the business and client relationship that can be hurt through the process of personal identification.
This can damage relationships between long-term clients who need to prove their identity, and respected members of society do not want to be asked for personal identification every time.
Simple transactions can be found to be suspect and money laundering derived from terrorism will typically involve instances in which simple operations had been performed (retail foreign exchange operations, international transfer of funds) revealing links with other countries including FATF blacklisted countries.
[23][24] In a leaked classified memo, Hillary Clinton said that in 2009 the kingdom was a crucial source of funds to Sunni terrorist groups, including al-Qaeda, the Taliban and Lashkar-e-Taiba pointing to its intelligence incompetence.
[25] In 2019, the European Commission added Saudi Arabia, along with several other countries, to its blacklist list of states that have failed to control money laundering and terrorism financing.
Saudi Arabia has been accused of not making enough effort to control the huge amounts of money being transferred to Islamist extremists and terrorist groups.
[32] The US Treasury Department alleged a business network spread across the UAE, the Horn of Africa and Cyprus of laundering millions of dollars to al-Shabaab.
A key financial facilitator of al-Shabaab is Dubai-based Haleel Commodities L.L.C., along with its subsidiaries and branches in Uganda, Kenya, Somalia and Cyprus.
[33] The United States Patriot Act, passed after the September 11 attacks in 2001, gives the US government anti-money laundering powers to monitor financial institutions.
[6] In 2020, Veit Buetterlin, who conducted investigations on-site in more than 20 countries and who was kidnapped in the course of his work, explained in an interview with CNN that the fight against terrorism financing will be an ongoing challenge (“it’s actually impossible to defeat a concept”).
In July 2010, Germany outlawed the Internationale Humanitäre Hilfsorganisation (IHH), saying it has used donations to support projects in Gaza that are related to Hamas, which is considered by the European Union to be a terrorist organization,[40][41] while presenting their activities to donors as humanitarian help.
It found that it had been donating portions of its contributions to a foundation which finances the families of Hezbollah members who commit suicide bombings.
Income sources for the Irish Republican and Loyalist paramilitaries came from gambling machines, cab companies and charitable donations in Northern Ireland, which provided the overwhelming bulk of revenue in the Troubles (1969–1998).
[51][50][52][53] Most or nearly all of the revenue for the IRA came from legitimate and criminal activities within Ireland such as protection rackets, bank robberies, black taxies, fraud, and money laundering, all of which contributed to the longevity of the conflict as it enabled the group to buy enough guns and explosives.
[61] United Nations Security Council Resolution 1373 is a counter-terrorism measure intended to deny financing to terrorist organisations and individuals.
Article 2.1 of the 1999 Terrorist Financing Convention defines the crime of terrorist financing as the offense committed by "any person" who "by any means, directly or indirectly, unlawfully and willfully, provides or collects funds with the intention that they should be used or in the knowledge that they are to be used, in full or in part, in order to carry out" an act "intended to cause death or serious bodily injury to a civilian, or to any other person not taking an active part in the hostilities in a situation of armed conflict, when the purpose of such act, by its nature or context, is to intimidate a population, or to compel a government or an international organization to do or to abstain from doing any act.