Shariah Finance Watch editor briefs Congressional staffers on Shariah-Compliant Finance
Recently we had the opportunity to brief staff members from 10 Congressional offices on the threat of Shariah Finance. The briefing was recorded and we have posted the full 1-hour briefing here for SFW viewers… Shariah Compliant Finance and Financial Jihad
US Treasury Sanctions Two for Ties to Al Qaeda
These kinds of sanctions are largely symbolic since it is unlikely that these two men have any assets in the USA. The Treasury Department put two people that it alleged have ties to militant Islamist groups on a blacklist on Thursday and banned American citizens from any dealings with them. The Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets […]
Federal authorities have arrested a Florida businessman, Osama “Sam” Mustafa in a money laundering/tax fraud scheme. This is not the first time Mustafa has met the Feds. He was previously questioned a decade ago because he had employed one of the 9/11 hijackers at one of his San Diego gas station/convenience stores in 2000. Two […]
We have covered HSBC frequently here on SFW, but Forbes and Reuters have just broken a story that paints a picture of HSBC as a financial institution out of control when it comes to vigilance against money laundering. We first reported on HSBC’s deplorable money laundering policies almost a year ago when it was announced […]
Seven people have been arrested in Britain on suspicion of funding overseas terrorism with money linked to smuggling of the stimulant khat. The arrests were part of an international probe into alleged terror fundraising and money-laundering. In a statement, Scotland Yard said the arrests were part of an investigation into a network suspected of illegally […]
The U.S. Treasury Department’s point man on terrorist financing is off to the Middle East for nearly two weeks. Daniel Glaser, assistant Treasury secretary for terrorist financing, will travel to Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Israel and the United Arab Emirates. Glaser will talk with government and private sector officials about the threat of terrorist financing, […]
This news story proves the adage that truth is indeed stranger than fiction. It seems that a US Department of Homeland Security Immigration and Customs Enforcement intelligence officer has been embroiled in serious financial impropriety. But wait, that isn’t even HALF the story. It gets much worse. This intelligence officer is a former colonel in […]
More Details on Funding for the Taliban
Not long ago we mentioned that the Taliban had gone online to raise money for their violent Jihadi activities. In that same post we mentioned that US intelligence sources had indicated that most of the Taliban’s financing sources remained intact since US forces engineered their overthrow way back in 2001. This continued financing provides one […]
The Yassine family of Austin, Texas is apparently quite the enterprising group. Led by Hussein “Mike” Yassine, the Yassines were quite diversified. They own 8 bars. According to law enforcement authorities they are also a one-family crime wave. They are involved in murder, money laundering, drug dealing–and they have a brother back in Lebanon who […]
FATF, the world’s leading international watchdog for money laundering, terror funding, and financial standard setting, is concerned that Bangladesh hasn’t done enough to criminalize terrorist financing, and isn’t freezing suspect accounts. FATF is rightly concerned. Just take Islami Bank Bangladesh Limited as an example. IBBL is Bangladesh’s premier sharia bank, and it has used its wealth to […]
Correcting The New Misinformation on Islamic Charities Funding Jihadist Terrorism
The Guardian in the UK has come out with an article (“Counterterrorism laws taking their toll on humanitarian action”) critical of US counterterrorism efforts that are designed to prevent the funneling of money to Jihadist terrorist groups, especially in Gaza and Somalia, two hotbeds of Jihadist terrorist activity. When ever we see misguided and ignorant […]
A Syrian-American restaurant owner named Jamal Roman in Baton Rouge, Louisiana has been sentenced to 53 months in prison on a variety of fraud, bribery and tax evasion charges. What is also buried in the press release from the FBI below, is the fact that he also sent $700,000 to Syria, in violation of US […]
An Iranian businessman, Amir-Mansour Aria, has been accused of defrauding the world’s second largest Shariah-compliant bank out of $2.6 billion. SFW readers may recall us mentioning the bank, Bank Saderat, from time to time: https://shariahfinancewatch.org/2009/08/12/shariah-compliant-finance-helps-terrorist-banks-in-iran/ Bank Saderat is second only to Iran’s Bank Melli on the list of largest Shariah-compliant financial institutions in the world. Iranian […]
3 Boston Islamic charity leaders convicted for support of jihad
A federal appeals court on Thursday overturned the acquittal of a Libyan man and two associates who were accused of conspiring to dupe the U.S. government into granting tax-exempt status to a defunct Muslim charity by hiding its pro-jihad activities. The appeals court reinstated the jury’s guilty verdict against Libya’s Emadeddin Muntasser together with Samir […]
The indispensable people over at The Investigative Project on Terrorism are reporting that the Obama Justice Department have reached a settlement with a Shariah-compliant financial institution being investigated for involvement in terrorism financing and tax evasion. The Islamic Investment Company of the Gulf (IICG) was part of a web of financial institutions with ties to […]
Earlier this month, SFW brought to its readers a report on the possible motives of the Holder Justice Department not to prosecute CAIR (Council on American Islamic Relations) for its role in the Holy Land Foundation terrorism financing scheme: https://shariahfinancewatch.org/2011/07/07/report-attorney-general-eric-holder-protected-hamas-linked-council-on-american-islamic-relations-for-political-reasons/ Over at Andrew Breitbart’s Big Government site, Tom Fitton of Judicial Watch, has an article about […]
Matthew Bogdanos, a colonel in the United States Marine Corps, led the investigation into the looting of the Iraqi National Museum while serving in Iraq in 2003 and wrote about his experiences in his book, “Thieves of Baghdad.” He talks to CNN about why the loss of these treasures, often to terrorists and insurgents, is […]
The good folks over at Jihad Watch have posted a very important story about the Saudi-controlled International Islamic Relief Organization, a terrorist NGO that funds Al Qaeda in Pakistan: From Jihad Watch: We consistently see the juxtaposition of armed jihad and social services in groups like Hamas and Hizballah, and other organizations in the Muslim world, […]
Currently Greece faces a debt crisis that, apart from its obvious disastrous financial consequences both in a domestic and in a global scale, also raises security concerns related to terrorist networks of Islamist origin. In Athens, Greece, the Iranian Saderat bank is hosted, which is a U.S black-listed institution due to alleged links with Hezbollah. […]
Poor financial decisions with a Chicago futures brokerage firm lost an alleged al-Qaeda operative with links to Osama bin Laden some $20 million dollars in just eight months, according to a lawsuit filed recently in Chicago by the U.S. Department of Justice. Federal officials said Abu al Tayyeb, through an associate, deposited nearly $27 million […]
HSBC, one of the Western world’s largest apologists for, and promoters of, financial jihad, will soon pay a fine of $1 billion for failing to comply properly with anti-money laundering regulations. We should all be concerned that such a huge player in Shariah Finance, one which used to retain the Jihadist Mufti Taqi Usmani as […]
SFW readers who conduct business with E-Trade may wish to know that the firm failed to comply with anti-money laundering regulations specifically aimed at Jihad by failing to maintain proper records on 1200 customers in Dubai. Dubai has a long history of being a finance center for Jihad, as well as a smuggling point into […]
Patrick Poole has clearly uncovered a huge story involving Eric Holder’s Justice Department and the story keeps mushrooming… According to these congressional sources, one case that was scuttled by Assistant Attorney General David Kris (who wrote the memo declining to prosecute Omar Ahmad in the Holy Land Foundation case) was a tax evasion and money […]
It sure would have been nice if these same concerns were shared by our shameful US Treasury Department, which held seminars on Shariah-Compliant Finance after Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice raised these issues… LONDON, March 15 (Reuters) – U.S. authorities expressed concerns that Britain’s growing sharia banking sector may be exploited to channel funds to […]
Al Qaeda called a ‘money making machine’ by British official–that’s not even HALF the story
The article below from The Telegraph in Great Britain quotes a British Foreign Office director as describing Al Qaeda as a “money making machine,” due to Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb’s practice of ransoming hostages for money. Evidently, Italy, Spain, Austria and Switzerland have all paid such ransoms to the Jihadist terrorist organization. This […]
How Counterfeit Money Fuels Jihad in India
India faces an increasing inflow of counterfeit currency, produced primarily in Pakistan, and terrorist and criminal networks use this money to finance their activities in the country according to the US government’s 2011 International Narcotics Control Strategy Report of the State Department. Noting that India is a significant target for terrorist groups, both external and […]
The US Department of the Treasury took action against the Lebanese Canadian Bank SAL this week, charging that the bank facilitates Jihadist terrorist group Hezbollah’s money laundering activities. In its 14 page report the Treasury Department designated the bank as being of “primary money laundering concern,” the effect of which is to place sanctions on […]
This article is from MoneyLaundering.com. It tends to overplay the amount of cooperation that the US is getting from the UAE in our opinion, but it also contains some good information. These particular lines are revealing of Dubai’s status as a financial rogue nation: “…every major” Dubai real estate project “has been, in part, financed […]
Khalid Ouazzani, 32, a naturalized U.S. citizen from Morocco, was accused of swearing allegiance to al Qaeda in 2008 and using $23,500 from a commercial loan as well as the sale of his business to give to the Jihadist terrorist group in 2007… http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE64I6V020100519?type=domesticNews
Hawala network tied to Times Square bomb plot
Hawala is an informal international Islamic money brokerage system with Shariah origins. It operates around the world, but exclusively in Islamic communities. It’s sort of like a Western Union system without any oversight. It is also used by money launderers to move wealth outside of the view of law enforcement and intelligence agencies. Hawala is also […]
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