On the Financial Front

Shortly after the terrorist attacks, President Bush signed an executive order (E.O. 13224) to block the funds of terrorists and anyone associated with terrorist groups or terrorism and asked the Treasury Secretary to lead the campaign to expose, isolate, and incapacitate the terrorists' financial networks.

The Department of State participates actively in the effort to bring allies and coalition partners together to block assets, seize books, records, and evidence, and to follow audit trails to track down terrorist organizations.  Working with international organizations and countries around the world, we have made it more difficult for terrorists to collect and move funds

In addition to passing resolutions (1267, 1373, 1390, and 1455) that form the legal basis for freezing terrorist assets on a global basis and require the imposition of sanctions on terrorist groups and those associated with them, the UN has also enacted resolutions requiring member states to report on their national programs for combating terrorist finance, providing incentive to improve them, if needed.  The reports also help in the assessment of where the programs can be improved.

Since 9/11, there has been considerable progress on the part of countries around the world to equip themselves with the instruments they need domestically to clamp down on terrorist financing.  Countries around the world have:

• Adopted new laws and regulations or strengthening existing ones in the area of anti-money laundering;
• Begun regulating, for the first time, networks outside banking channels ("halawa") that are used by expatriate workers around the world to legitimately transfer money home to relatives, but that also can be used by terrorists to transfer funds;
• Taken steps to identify and freeze the assets of terrorist groups masquerading as charitable institutions and otherwise inhibit terrorists' use of this ruse. 

In those cases where countries simply do not have the technical ability and skills to take action against terrorist financing, the U.S. has worked with the international communite to address the issue.  Together with the Departments of the Treasury and Justice, we have engaged in capacity -building initiatives in the areas of detection of trade-based mokney laundering, customs training, anti-terrorist financing techniques and case studies for bank reviewers, and financial investigative skills for law enforcement/counterterrorism officials.

In addition to the material on this site, more information information is available at the Department of State web site on the Counterterrorism Finance Unit at http://www.state.gov/s/ct/terfin/, the Treasury Department web site at: www.treasury.gov, and the Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering: Terrorist Financing web site at http://www.fatf-gafi.org/  Also note that the Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) has established the Financial Institutions Hotline at 1-866-556-3974 for financial institutions to voluntarily report to law enforcement suspicious transactions that may relate to terrorist activities.  It is operational 7 days a week, 24 hours a day.