February 2008

ARE SANCTIONS LISTS ENOUGH? Are Compliance Professionals Developing a False Sense of Security? John Solomon and Jay Jhaveri

The international financial (OFAC), the UK’s HM Treasury keeping their institutions safe community now stands on the (formerly the Bank of England from terrorist financing when, in frontlines in the war against issued sanctions), and the fact, they are nearly flying blind. terrorists and their supporters. European Union (EU) are the four Too often, the official sanctions Efforts to counter the financing of most authoritative sanctions only identify a sole terrorist leader terrorism centres on an issuing bodies. Taken together, or only a terrorist movement’s international regulatory the four most authoritative paramilitary apparatus when these framework have grown to reflect terrorism sanctions bodies list organisations actually comprise the intensified terrorist threat in 845 unique terrorism related vast global networks of people, the post-9/11 era. Compliance entries. World-Check, a political organisations, and with official blacklists of comprehensive ‘know your charitable and business fronts. designated terrorist individuals customer’ (KYC) database that and entities has become the monitors terrorist networks For a more detailed illustration, principal mechanism used to globally, by contrast, contains this report will drill down into only safeguard the global financial over 25,200 unique terrorism eight of the most dangerous system from the risks of terrorist related entries. In other words, terrorist organisations and financing. there are at least 25 times fewer contrast the relatively few terrorist related individuals and terrorists identified by official lists While compliance with terrorism entities identified by the four with the extraordinarily higher sanctions lists is undoubtedly most authoritative sanctioning estimates that experts and essential for effective counter bodies combined than are reasonable observers of terrorism financing of terrorism (CFT), identified by a leading monitoring could conclude are active abiding by official sanctions lists group. currently. alone is not precaution enough for preventing terrorists and their This degree of difference Liberation Tigers of Tamil supporters from exploiting the translates into 25 times more Eelam (LTTE) world’s financial institutions. actionable risk intelligence that is Merely complying with sanctions available but not identified by the Founded in 1976, the Liberation lists is by itself an inadequate official lists. Compliance Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) is the measure for any financial professionals relying on official only known insurgent organisation institution that is truly serious lists alone may develop a false with its own army, navy and now about countering the financing of sense of security that they are even a rudimentary air force. LTTE terrorism.

To expose the mistaken belief that ‘following the official lists is good enough CFT,’ this article illustrates the discrepancy between the number of terrorists blacklisted by the four most authoritative official lists and the exponentially greater number of associated terrorist groups and affiliated cells that a reasonable observer of these issues would conclude operate around the world.

The United Nations (UN), the US Office of Foreign Assets Control

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continues to carry out brutal Lashkar e-Taiba and other Jihadist terrorist violence against civilians, groups targeting India. political assassinations in India and Sri Lanka in addition to illicit The official sanctioning bodies fundraising and arms identify three total D-Company- procurement activities on a global related records. Yet D-Company scale. operates in at least 14 countries with a functioning business The total number of LTTE-related empire of shopping malls, luxury sanctions in the four most real estate and shipping and authoritative lists amounts to 22 trucking lines used for legal and records. On the other hand, the illegal businesses. It would seem World-Check database identifies implausible that there are only over 25 times more entries and three people or entities involved thus 25 times the risk coverage in such a network that has existed for financial institutions to identify for more than a quarter century. their exposure to the LTTE. Lashkar e-Taiba It would seem implausible that an organisation established in 1976 Lashkar e-Taiba (LeT), is a has only 22 individuals or entities Pakistan-based Sunni Jihadist designated as high risk by the terrorist organisation. Founded in four most authoritative 1989, it is allegedly supported by sanctioning authorities. Its force Pakistani intelligence elements Biography strength in the LTTE-controlled despite being banned in Pakistan regions of Sri Lanka alone in 2002. LeT aims to impose an John Solomon is global head of numbers approximately 10,000 Islamic caliphate over all parts of terrorism research at World-Check. people. LTTE’s global network of India; especially Jammu and Before joining World-Check, Solomon charitable and business fronts, Kashmir. The network expands its served as a congressional aide on irrespective of its vast network of presence and fundraising activities Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, and underworld crime groups, alone through Jamaat-ud-Dawa, its profiled terrorist movements for the amounts to at least five times the political/charitable front, and Centre for the Study of Terrorism and total number indicated by the Idara Khidmat-e-Khalq, another Political Violence at the University of official lists. associated humanitarian front. St Andrews in Scotland.

Dawood Ibrahim organisation LeT reportedly executed the A Boren US National Security Scholar, (or D-Company) August 2003 Mumbai attack he holds a diploma in which killed 55 and injured 180 in language from the American Emerging as Mumbai’s most addition to the October 2005 University in Cairo and degrees from powerful narcotics cartel in the Diwali attack in Delhi and the July the University of St Andrews and the early 1980s, the Dawood Ibrahim 2006 attack on the ‘Friendship University of Oklahoma. Organisation is a South Asia and Express’ in which over 180 people Middle Eastern network engaged were killed. The group also His work on terrorism has appeared in crime and terrorism. The allegedly was involved in the in the book ‘Unmasking Terror: A organisation provided financial thwarted Trans Atlantic Airline Global Review of Terrorist Activities’, resources for the 1993 Bombay (TAA) plot in August 2006 in the Jane’s Intelligence Review and the Exchange bombings in India. UK. Washington DC-based Jamestown Foundation’s Terrorism Monitor and The US government and UN have The organisation is believed to Terrorism Focus. He has been invited identified the syndicate’s have over 2,000 offices in to speak at security and counter- principal, Dawood Ibrahim, as a Pakistan alone. The four major terrorism conferences around the global terrorist for providing sanctioning authorities list 11 LeT- world. material support for Al-Qaeda, related people and entities.

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Harakat-Ul--Ul-Islami Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA) (HUJI) The Al-Qaeda-funded Jemaah Since its founding in 1959, the An Islamic terrorist group active in Islamiyah (JI) has arguably been Basque ethnic-separatist group, Jammu and Kashmir, India, the Southeast Asian region’s most Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA), has Pakistan and Bangladesh, Harakat- serious terrorist threat. Despite undertaken a terrorist campaign Ul-Jihad-Ul-Islami emerged from being weakened by the killings to realise an independent Basque two Deobandi religious bodies and arrests of its leadership and state in what is currently northern called the Jamiat Ulema-i- operatives, the group retains the and southwestern France. and the Tablighi Jamaat as part of capability to carry out attacks ETA has undertaken a campaign the anti-Soviet Jihad in the 1980s. against US, Australian and other of terrorism in recent years Engaged in terrorist activities in western interests throughout the including the airport Jammu and Kashmir for many region. With presence in bombing in December 2006, in years, the group allegedly carried Indonesia, the Philippines, which 2 were killed, attempted out the August 2007 serial blasts Malaysia, Thailand and Singapore, political assassinations and the in Hyderabad that killed at least JI has executed extraordinarily murder of two Spanish civil 42 people. deadly attacks on innocent guards in December 2007. civilians. Attacks include the fist Having been active for nearly Bali bombing in October 2002, the The sanctions bodies list a total of three decades, the four major JW Marriott Hotel attack in August 37 ETA-related profiles while the sanctioning authorities list only 2003 and the attack on the Spanish High Court in December seven related entries. Australian embassy in September 2007 convicted 47 individuals 2004, and the second Bali responsible for fundraising and United Liberation Front of bombing in October 2005. other terrorist support activities. Assam (ULFA) In light of the ruling, and with an Established in Malaysia in 1993, estimated annual budget of over Ostensibly aimed at creating an only 35 persons have been €10 million in 2002, it could independent Assamese state in designated high risk by the four certainly be reasonably concluded northeastern India, the United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA) has carried out numerous attacks While compliance with terrorism sanctions lists is on economic, political and non- combatant civilian targets since its undoubtedly essential for effective counter founding in 1979. financing of terrorism (CFT), abiding by official To raise money, the ethnic- separatist ULFA is reportedly sanctions lists alone is not precaution enough for engaged in narcotics trafficking and extortion in addition to preventing terrorists and their supporters from overseeing a transnational network of legitimate business exploiting the world’s financial institutions. interests ranging from hotels to soft drink manufacturing. most authoritative sanctioning that more than 37 ETA-related Despite the undertaking of authorities. high risk individuals and entities terrorist activities tantamount to are currently active. other designated groups, the four Yet, a disconnect exists. Since the most authoritative sanctioning October 2002 attacks, 400 Al-Qaeda bodies have designated no ULFA- militants have been captured and related individuals or entities. The 70 convicted of terrorism-related The Al-Qaeda leadership considers World-Check database, on the crimes. Indonesian police itself the vanguard of a global other hand, contains at least 340 estimated JI membership to be Jihadi movement that spans a vast detailed profiles. 900 people in 2007 alone. network of associated groups and

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affiliated cells in over 100 more holistic risk-based approach countries. Ostensibly led by to CFT that accounts for realistic and Ayman al- assessments of the terrorist Zawahiri, the Al-Qaeda financing threat. organisation is at present most active in Iraq, Afghanistan and the There are two recommendations Pakistani tribal areas. Al-Qaeda’s for the financial community to paramilitary strategy is possibly bolster its defenses for terrorist derived from the writings of financing. First, banks and other Jihadist operative and ideologue, financial institutions must account Mustafa Setmariam Nasar (aka for the reality that terrorist Abu Musab al-Suri), who advocates organisations constitute not only a fourth generation style warfare the attack cell or paramilitary that capitalises on information apparatus that carries out attacks, technology, decentralised but more importantly, also the organisation and asymmetric entire terrorist network of terrorist attacks. The group is associated fronts and affiliated responsible for numerous major cells, which often provides the attacks on civilians around the financial resources necessary for a world. given campaign of terrorist violence. The world’s sanctions lists identify a total of 406 Al-Qaeda-related Secondly, financial institutions profiles. World-Check contains need to maintain a 360-degree over 2,450 Al-Qaeda-related awareness of the relevant Biography profiles. Some estimates indicate jurisdiction and the terrorist over 70,000 possible recruits organisations operating within. Jay Jhaveri is the head, Asia for having been trained in Al-Qaeda Where presence of a terrorist World-Check. Jay is considered an camps. It would be a grave network exists, there almost authority and is frequently asked to mistake to be rest assured that certainly must also be some speak and present papers at only the 406 individuals and terrorist financing taking place. conferences and thought leadership entities listed on the official lists seminars on issues relating to Anti- accurately represent the terror Suffocating terrorists of the funds Money Laundering (AML), the risk Al-Qaeda poses to the global needed to carry out attacks has Countering of Financing of Terrorism financial system. become a mantra of the global (CFT), Know Your Client (KYC), counterterrorism community since Enhanced Due Diligence (EDD) and Conclusion 9/11. It must be remembered that Politically Exposed Persons (PEP). Jay the first strike on the World Trade has published numerous papers on The number of known terrorists Center in 1993 failed only these subjects and his views are around the world far exceeds the because Ramzi Yousef’s Al-Qaeda frequently sought by the press and number of designated terrorists cell lacked the money to buy academicians. identified by the sanctioning enough ammonium nitrate to bodies. For the financial destroy the towers. Coffers Jay was a banker for more than 12 community to effectively combat replenished and Al-Qaeda years of which, the last eight were in the financing of terrorism, it must returned eight years later to finish wealth management. He has worked disabuse itself of the false sense the job. Financial institutions must with the leading European and Swiss of security had by taking steps to not allow themselves to be banks in India, London and only comply with sanctions lists. exploited as conduits for the Singapore. To adequately understand financing of Al-Qaeda or any exposure to possible reputational other terrorist group. The costs Jay holds an MBA in Finance and MIS risk from doing business with in blood and treasure for the and a BBA in Economics and terrorists and their backers, state, society and economy are Management. financial institutions must adopt a too high.

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