WUNRN
We as women see the painful results of terrorist
operations. How do they keep going, victimizing and often women and girls? How
are they financed?
How are transnational illicit activities as trafficking of women, generating and moving so much money, enriching the dealers, exploiting many, and assuredly women?
Global Financial Integrity - http://www.gfintegrity.org/issue/transnational-crime-terrorist-financing/
Global Financial Integrity (GFI) is a non-profit, advisory organization, which produces high-caliber analyses of illicit financial flows, advises developing country governments on effective policy solutions, and promotes pragmatic transparency measures in the international financial system as a means to global development and security.
Transnational Crime & Terrorist Financing
Most crimes committed in the world are crimes of greed.
Transnational criminal networks can generate huge sums of money, and—like any
other business—they require access to the international financial system in
order to conduct their complex and far-reaching operations.
Law enforcement operations often focus predominantly on
interdicting the physical objects—like bags of cocaine or boxes of counterfeit Rolexes—being
smuggled by criminals, rather than tracking and seizing the money being earned
by the criminal networks.
GFI believes that effective law enforcement requires following
the money and making it more difficult to launder illicit proceeds. Across all
the illicit industries and security threats—from arms trafficking to illicit
timber to terrorism—money is the most common thread. Making it more difficult
to move and hide illicit money is an overarching solution to the source of all
of these problems, which are often approached as separate issues by law
enforcement.
What Are the Biggest Illicit Industries?
In 2011, GFI research
estimated that the global illicit flow of goods, guns, people, and
natural resources is approximately $650 billion. Of the 12 illicit activities
studied, drug smuggling ($320 billion per year), counterfeiting ($250 billion
per year), and human trafficking ($31.6 billion) were the first, second, and
third largest, respectively, in terms of illicit funds generated.
The following table shows the full breakdown of the 12 different
illicit markets analyzed by GFI:
GFI is currently in the process of updating these estimates.
Certain industries have seen tremendous growth since 2011, including the
illicit wildlife and oil industries.
How Do Criminals Move Money?
Generally, transnational criminals move money the same way that
tax evaders or corrupt public officials do. Some, like notorious arms
trader Viktor Bout (portrayed by Nicholas Cage in the 2005 movie Lord of War),
use a web of anonymous shell
companies to hide assets. Others, like the Colombian drug
cartel exporting stuffed animals out of Los Angeles, utilize trade-based money laundering.
What about Terrorist Financing?
The line between criminal network and terrorist network has
become increasingly blurry in recent years. Terrorists often finance their
operations by selling drugs, poaching rhinos, or counterfeiting goods. They
participate in the same networks and use the same mechanisms to move illicit
money.