Terrorism financing

The fight against terrorism is progressively been paralyzed because terrorists are taking advantage of the U.S. and World’s vulnerable financial systems to accomplish their illegal and crooked activities. Financial institutions have loosened their compliance to the rules and regulations that are presented in the USA Patriotic Act by failing to screen and monitor all the financial transactions and other money-laundering activities which are used to fund terrorists. The fact that the 9/11 terrorist attack by al-Qaida was partly facilitated by the successful money-laundering activities implies that banks are to be blamed for the attack[1]. The upcoming organization of ISIS which is the major threat to the United States is also taking advantage of the vulnerable conditions of the banking systems. In this regard banks are bad basing on how reckless they have acted towards playing their part in combating terrorism in various ways.

First, banks have intentionally loosened their financial controls. This has lead the disaster of money-laundering to flourish despite having witnessed the impacts of the 9/11 attacks which have lasted for more than 10 years. Loose financial controls therefore attract the risk of destabilization of the financial health. Once the countries become vulnerable financially, terrorists find it easy to conduct crimes, and major terrorist attacks because they are funded. Banks are also bad because they don’t want to be exposed as the ones through whom the terrorists have transacted with. This makes it hard for the DHS to discern where potential terrorist threats are in terms of finance[2]. Most banks hide to protect their reputation and the trust that have been built by their customers at the expense of the homeland security. It is surprising to learn that money laundering occurs regularly everyday across the United States according to the prosecuted investigations. This is a clear indication that banks are bad and a great threat to the national security[3].

The next complain concerning banks is that they withhold data. According to Thomas, Big data Problem is the biggest barrier in the fight against terrorists’ money laundering. There are trillions of money transactions that usually go through the world’s financial systems which go unnoticed. Banks at times withhold this data which could be used to track terrorists prior to their attacks. However, the main rationale for this weakness would be due to the lack advanced data mining-tools which could efficiently and powerfully drill into obtaining any suspicious transactions.

Banks have covered up their clients who have illicit intentions in a number of ways. First, banks have cherished the concept of underground banking which usually goes unnoticed. This occurs when a certain bank is forced to allow the terrorist transactions by criminal groups and gangsters.

Banks have also hidden secretly some overseas and offshore bank accounts which are not subject to the rules and regulations of the United States. This favors the interests of some terrorist groups who usually transact under the protection of their countries. Banks have therefore contributed to terrorism by opening secret offshore and overseas accounts[4].

Lastly banks have covered-up their clients by keeping silence when a suspicious transaction has been made. Banks fear to break up the trust it had for a long time built hence prefer to let go the terrorist’ transactions. This automatically weakens the efforts of the law enforcement agencies because it is like a chess game[5].

 

 

 

 

 

 

Reference

Thomson Reuters, 2013 Technology in the Fight against Money Laundering in the New Digital Currency Age.

 

 

[1] Thomson Reuters, 2013 Technology in the Fight against Money Laundering in the New Digital Currency Age.

 

 

Thomson Reuters, 2013 Technology in the Fight against Money Laundering in the New Digital Currency Age.

Thomson Reuters, 2013 Technology in the Fight against Money Laundering in the New Digital Currency Age.

 

[4] Thomson Reuters, 2013 Technology in the Fight against Money Laundering in the New Digital Currency Age.

 

[5] Thomson Reuters, 2013 Technology in the Fight against Money Laundering in the New Digital Currency Age.