The Boston Herald May 14, 2010
No 'switch' to shut terror cash flow
By Edward Mason
Subterranean channels for funneling money to terrorists intent on harming Americans form a front on the war on terror that will be difficult to win, terrorism experts said.
“There’s no magic wand,” said Jim Walsh, a research associate at the MIT Security Studies Program. “There’s no chance we’ll pull a switch and they’ll have no cash.”
Targets of yesterday’s arrests across the Northeast may have been halal bankers or money couriers who - knowingly or unknowingly - provided funding to failed Times Square bomber Faisal Shahzad.
As the United States since 9/11 made it tough to move money without being tracked, terrorists began seeking low-tech ways to avoid getting caught, said terrorism expert Neil Livingstone, similar to when the United States began spying on their cell phones.
“We could listen to their conversations, so now they just talk face-to-face,” Livingstone said. “And this is very low-tech.”
Indeed, halal banks are an ancient finance system in the Muslim world that allows someone to deposit funds at one location and redeem them at another.
“It’s like travelers checks - you put money in at one end and you get it out at the other end,” said John Pike, executive director of GlobalSecurity.org.
But like couriers, Pike said, there is no electronic or paper trail thatofficials can follow to prevent a crime before it happens or reconstruct one that does.
Americans can’t hope to eliminate the legitimate halal system, but by going after unwitting participants in crimes they can hope to make the money movers uncomfortable.
“No one can expect to squeeze it to zero,” Walsh said. “But you want as many hassles and hoops as possible.“
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