Australians fund terror groups

[poledriver]

Australians fund terror groups

Terror groups taking cut as drug money is laundered

EXCLUSIVE

Terrorist groups are profiting as part of a money-laundering operation involving hundreds of millions of dollars Australians are spending on illegal drugs.

The revelations come as Australia's biggest money-laundering investigation, Project Eligo, has identified hundreds of unwitting Australian residents being duped into helping to launder the drug money overseas - including funds generated by outlaw motorcycle gangs and people-smuggling operations.

It is believed at least one of the ''exchange houses'' used in the Australian laundering operation delivers a cut from every dollar it launders to Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, whose military wing has been proscribed in Australia as a terrorist group.

The investigation has uncovered 40 separate money-laundering operations across Australia, moving hundreds of millions of dollars in drug money offshore, and identified almost 130 serious organised crime figures previously unknown to law-enforcement agencies.

One of the ways drug money can be laundered offshore involves crime figures targeting Australian residents - mostly foreign nationals and students - who are expecting a foreign bank, remittance service or business overseas to send money into their local account.

Instead of this occurring , the crime figures deposit Australian drug money into the bank accounts of the unsuspecting victims and request money from the bank or business overseas.

"We are trying to educate these innocent people,'' said the Australian Crime Commission's acting operations manager, Col Blanch.

''If we have new arrivals in the country, we want to educate them. If they are moving their money this way, they risk being exploited by serious organised criminals."

The operation has seized $26 million in dirty cash, restrained $30 million worth of houses and other assets funded by drug money and intercepted drug shipments totalling more than $530 million.

It is understood dozens of ''exchange houses'' or money-laundering centres in the Middle East and Asia are used to wash and distribute the money to overseas crime bosses.

The US government last year identified two Lebanese exchange houses, Kassem Rmeiti and Halawi Exchange, as drug money-launderers financing Hezbollah.

The revelations about the taskforce come as the federal government plans to revamp the nation's asset confiscation and unexplained wealth regime. Most state governments and police forces are failing to back a push from federal agencies to fully use the seizure powers.

One senior police source said Australia was good at tracking and freezing drug money heading overseas, but it struggled to do the same with the proceeds of crime locally.

Mr Blanch said the taskforce investigation had tracked down "people-smuggling money … and bikie money". Most of the funds moved involve the proceeds of drug-trafficking.

Mr Blanch said that due to the scale of the massive criminal operation, his agency had to call for the help of state and federal police and the US Drug Enforcement Administration.

"It was just never-ending,'' Mr Blanch said. ''We were regularly finding bags of $500,000 and $400,000."

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/national/terr...s-laundered-20140122-3196g.html#ixzz2r9ueQACw

 

[23536]

I've argued against this line of reasoning before. Consumers did not create the illegal market. Drugs were legal and legally purchased for many centuries. It is politicians that created the illegal market. Politicians, therefore, are the ones funding the terror groups.

If insulin were prohibited tomorrow and only al-qaeda sold insulin, we could equally claim that diabetics are funding terror. It would be bullshit then, and it's bullshit now.

 

[One Thousand Words]

They are not talking about purchasing drugs funding these groups, they are talking about a scam involving foreign students transferring money who are inadvertently being used as cash mules by drug dealers with terrorist group backing

 

[Shadowsblaze]

A case of the blind leading. And I doubt they will ever admit the error because its a reflection on there political savvy. No practical knowledge, or understanding. Its a sad joke.

 

[TheRapperGoneBad]

I've argued against this line of reasoning before. Consumers did not create the illegal market. Drugs were legal and legally purchased for many centuries. It is politicians that created the illegal market. Politicians, therefore, are the ones funding the terror groups.

If insulin were prohibited tomorrow and only al-qaeda sold insulin, we could equally claim that diabetics are funding terror. It would be bullshit then, and it's bullshit now.

Came to post something along these line but this is perfect.
great post numbers!

 

[bit_pattern]

http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2013/s3931176.htm

Transcript
LEIGH SALES, PRESENTER: Australian law enforcement authorities today revealed the existence of a covert money laundering taskforce. They claim it significantly disrupted crime syndicates over the past year. The Crime Commission says that by following the money trail, it's been able to disrupt 18 high-risk crime syndicates and seize more than half a billion dollars worth of drugs, assets and cash. But as Matt Peacock reports, there are questions about why so few details have emerged about which crime networks have allegedly been disrupted.

MATT PEACOCK, REPORTER: More than half a billion dollars is the haul that federal law enforcers say they've taken in drugs, cash and criminal assets in the past year as a result of a new Taskforce Eligo on money laundering.

PAUL JEVTOVIC, ACTING CEO, AUSTRALIAN CRIME COMMISSION: The Eligo Taskforce intelligence has led to an average $1 million a day being seized in the past week alone.

MATT PEACOCK: Flanked by a beaming federal minister, his crime agencies were today declaring victory over money laundering, or at least dramatic progress, and to prove it, they had some of the money there from the Federal Police haul last weekend.

TONY NEGUS, AUST. FEDERAL POLICE COMMISSIONER: Just after 11 o'clock on Saturday, 18th January, AFP federal agents executed a search warrant on the Mascot apartment block and spoke to the male occupant. During the search of the premises, it's alleged that federal agents located seven suitcases, which you see here, containing the large amount of cash we see before us.

MATT PEACOCK: While journalists ogled the suitcases of money, more cynical observers focused on other money: the funds that might be cut from a new federal government.

PROF DAVID CHAIKIN, BUSINESS SCHOOL, UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY: We had bigwigs present today. The head of AUSTRAC, Australian Crime Commission and Australian Federal Police. They're obviously very concerned that their budgets might be subject to cuts in the next budget. So it's quite critical that they present to the public and to the politicians that they are being effective.

MATT PEACOCK: In terms of cash and assets seized, not the drugs value, the much-feted joint announcement may not actually have been such a precedent.

PROF DAVID CHAIKIN: From what I can see, they've seized a modest but not insignificant sum of money and some assets, about nearly $50 million in non-drug assets. Now, considering that the AFP seized in 2011-2012 about $100 million worth of assets, I'd say $50 million is reasonably significant as compared to that $100 million figure.

MATT PEACOCK: But today's announcement did shed some light on how authorities sort the good from the bad in Australia's 84 million overseas money transfers a year.

JOHN SCHMIDT, CEO, AUSTRAC: Obviously no one person could sit down and go through that information, but we have very, very sophisticated automated systems which look for patterns of behaviour, we can put in place targets so individuals or certain types of transactions which will be pulled out of the system.

MATT PEACOCK: 99 per cent of international money transfers to and from Australia are done through banks and other financial institutions, but it's been the much smaller $30 billion underground banking system, the so-called remittance industry, that's been targeted by the taskforce.

PROF DAVID CHAIKIN: In Australia, underground banking has been with us for a long, long period of time and it's actually the main method of moving money historically for immigrants, for transit workers overseas.

JOHN SCHMIDT: So you'll have Western Unions and other organisations which have branches globally and money can go in through one branch and be made available elsewhere and then down to the much, much smaller operation which is the more historically traditional one, which is often called Hawala - there are other names. And this is particularly important for people who - maybe in Australia, who from countries which don't have easy access to formal banking system.

PROF DAVID CHAIKIN: The issue is to what extent has the illegal side of that market been counted by the anti-money laundering laws? And I think it's still too early to say to judge the effectiveness of that.

MATT PEACOCK: Criminal communications have also been moving with the times.

PAUL JEVTOVIC: They'll use communication on the net, they'll use Xbox games that people can play over the net, they'll use encrypted communication devices, Blackberry telephone. So all those things that are developed for positive business outputs, organised crime use for criminal activity.

MATT PEACOCK: Much of the laundered money identified by the taskforce is transferred across multiple borders through a complex network of facilitators and ending up in some of the world's major financial centres.

JOHN SCHMIDT: Money laundering is a funny beast. In some ways, if you want to know where the money is moving through to be laundered, it's the well-known financial centres around the world because criminals aren't - the international ones aren't stupid. They want to use systems they can rely upon.

PROF DAVID CHAIKIN: There's no question that the great bulk of dirty money ends up in the major international financial centres like London, like New York, because those are centres that the criminals can trust, not just legitimate business people.

MATT PEACOCK: And by targeting the cash, not the people, Australian law enforcers believe they've been disrupting the criminal economy more effectively.

PAUL JEVTOVIC: We don't focus on a particular organised crime group. We don't focus on a particular crime target. We follow the money, and literally follow the money.

LEIGH SALES: Matt Peacock with that report.

 

[neversickanymore]

whenever we decide to legalize the drugs then the money will no longer go to thugs.