“No Money For Terror” Conference

Topics Covered:

1. Security challenges and their management in border areas; linkages of organized crime with terrorism.

“No Money For Terror” Conference

What to study?

For Prelims: About the conference and the Egmont group.

For Mains: Terror financing- concerns, challenges and ways to address them.

Context: India will host the next edition of the ”No Money For Terror” conference to be held in 2020. The announcement was made at the ”No Money For Terror” conference in Melbourne, Australia. 

Key facts:

• The ”No Money For Terror” conference is organised by Financial Intelligence Units (FIUs) of over 100 countries, jointly called The Egmont Group.
• Recognising the importance of international cooperation in the fight against money laundering and financing of terrorism, a group of FIUs met a few years ago at the Egmont Arenberg Palace in Brussels, Belgium, and decided to establish an informal network of FIUs for the stimulation of international co-operation.
• The Egmont Group was created to provide FIUs around the world a forum to exchange information confidentially to combat money-laundering, the financing of terrorism and other predicate offences.

Money Laundering and the Financing of Terrorism:

• Terrorists and terrorist organizations rely on money to sustain themselves and to carry out terrorist acts. Money for terrorists is derived from a wide variety of sources.
• While terrorists are not greatly concerned with disguising the origin of money, they are concerned with concealing its destination and the purpose for which it has been collected. Terrorists and terrorist organizations therefore employ techniques similar to those used by money launderers to hide their money.
• The ability to prevent and detect money-laundering is a highly effective means of identifying criminals and terrorists and the underlying activity from which money is derived.
• The application of intelligence and investigative techniques can be one way of detecting and disrupting the activities of terrorists and terrorist organizations.

Sources: the Hindu.