Thread: Funding terror, one bit at a time

Funding terror, one bit at a time

(While this story occurs in Italy, this is likely happening in the US)

September 7, 2007
BY Victor L. Simpson Associated Press

MILAN, Italy -- Prosecutors call it terrorism on the cheap.

Every few weeks, the Tunisians would stop at a bank or Western Union office and wire funds to a city in Europe or the Middle East. No one took much notice. The sums were small -- sometimes only a few hundred dollars -- and thousands of other people were doing the same thing across Italy, many of them immigrant workers sending money home.

This group, however, allegedly had dark motives.

In June, Italian officials broke up the ring with the arrest of four people, three in Milan and one in London, after examining financial records showing a steady transfer of funds allegedly used to recruit Islamic extremists and send them to terrorist training camps in Afghanistan.

"They were small amounts, below the limits that require reporting," said an assessment by Italian financial police.

The Associated Press interviewed key officials and uncovered previously undisclosed details about how terrorist cells move money -- often by transferring sums so small they elude programs that track terrorist financing. It's a loophole that raises questions about the effectiveness of the vast post-9/11 effort governments have made to choke off funding.

"How much do you think it takes to carry out a terrorist attack?" Milan prosecutor Elio Ramondini asked during an interview in his office in Milan's Palace of Justice. "Not very much," he said.

http://www.suburbanchicagonews.com/cour ... S1.article

THIS IS DEFINITELY SCARY. WITH SO MANY SENDING MONEY OUT OF THE COUNTRY IT WOULD BE HARD TO TRACK EVERY SINGLE TRANSACTION.