Follow The Money: Crowdfunding, Terrorism & Charity

Crowdfunding is something that has become globally known over the past decade. With discussions surrounding crowdfunding come the stories of its misuse. Whether people lie to receive donations or those who e-beg on social media, crowdfunding has its fair share of controversies. It is not only fraudsters who exploit these services but also terror organisations. Crowdfunding websites allow terrorists to act in plain sight, masquerading behind or sometimes as charitable organisations to receive funds. This issue reaches beyond the crowdfunding space. The economic exemptions and rules for non-profits allow them to become a target for money laundering. These tactics from terror organisations prey on ordinary people who believe they are giving to charity, but are, in fact, contributing to terror activity.

How does Crowdfunding contribute to Terrorism?

The way in which crowdfunding websites are set up allows for terrorism to use the site with ease. This makes these donation websites the most susceptible to being exploited by terrorist organisations. These illicit organisations purposefully seek out websites that have major flaws so they can act more productively. Many crowdfunding sites have dubious and vague conditions which do not explicitly disallow terror-inciting content. They also target websites that allow owners to keep funds, even though their monetary goal was not met. The method of payment is important to these extremists. Some websites make it so donators remain anonymous, hiding their identity behind a username or allowing anonymous donating. Crowdfunding sites that allow crypto and donations through dubious financial institutions are also ideal to terrorists. These payment methods obscure the identity of the donators and of the campaign runners, allowing them to act without any attention from the authorities. Terrorists also look for similar terror incitement campaigns on the website. If they find evidence of other terror organisations operating on the website then they are reassured that they too can operate unimpeded. The details of the actual campaign are also crucial to spotting those established by terrorist organisations. The biggest indicator is a lack of or unclear background information about the campaign. Their names can be broad, generic terms. For example, 'save the children, or 'helping refugees in conflict zones'. They purposefully make these campaigns look charitable as sympathetic ideas to attract donations from more people. This also makes it possible for unsuspecting people to make donations. The same campaign being posted across numerous crowdfunding sites and offering a variety of payment methods are also a red flag for terrorist activity. Sometimes, these campaigns will offer donation links in the actual descriptions, allowing for the website's payment method to be bypassed completely. This not only means that payments won't be recorded on the website, but also allows donators to further obscure their identity.

Often, terrorist campaigns are easy to spot. The descriptions will discuss political issues in a hateful rhetoric or be openly supportive of terrorism. Usually, their goals will be far larger than similar campaigns in its category and have much more support. Another easy way is to check the legitimacy of associated charities. Sometimes, campaigns will mention another non-profit to bolster their legitimacy. In reality, these charities are usually not associated with the campaign in any way or are also controlled by terror organisations. Checking the legitimacy or contacting listed charities are the best way to find their legitimacy. Often times, a simple Google search will turn up reports of terror-linked charities. This is the same with the campaign's creator. Often times, the creator is also linked to terrorism in some way. The day the campaign is posted may also hold some significance to the terrorist organisation. Checking the day of a campaign's posting may also reveal a link to terrorism.

Donors to these campaigns can vary quite significantly. Most of the time, terrorists coordinate with pre-established donors, who direct their funds to the desired campaign. Sometimes, it can be from unwitting donors who just want to direct their money towards a charity, unknowingly supporting terrorist activity. Donors are the biggest asterisk in identifying criminal crowdfunding campaigns. All because a donator has links to terrorism or financial crime, doesn't mean that all of the campaigns they contribute to are affiliated. It is common for donators who do contribute to terror run campaigns to spread their funds across various legitimate campaigns to cover their tracks. This way authorities can't easily see which campaign is run by terrorists. When examining a campaign's donators there are certain telltale signs that show authorities that they are contributing to terrorists. Things like: abnormally large donation amounts, use of cryptocurrency to donate and if the donators have donated to other terrorist run campaigns. It can also be the case that these donators aren't real and are instead bot accounts created by a single donator. This is done to spread large donations across several smaller transactions, as to not raise the eyebrows of the authorities. Admins can usually detect these fake accounts as they share the same IP address or bank account as the other accounts.

To summarise, crowdfunding websites are vulnerable to terrorist campaigns. When looking to donate to an unverified campaign, there are several things authorities and donators can do to see if it is run by terror organisations: 

• Avoid crowdfunding sites without proper verification or bad terms of service. 
• Check if the campaign's goals are similar to other campaigns in its category. 
• Check the description of the campaign to see if the aims of the campaign are specific. 
• See if the date it was posted aligns with any significant terror events. 
• Research the donator's background. See if their accounts are legitimate and what other campaigns they have pledged to. 

Social Media's Role in Funding Terrorism

Social media's role in recruiting terrorists is well known, but what isn't is how it transformed the way in which terrorism is funded. The widespread use of social media allows for terrorist groups to send messages and cryptocurrency without impediment, especially through encrypted services like Telegram. The two biggest users of social media to bolster their funding is ISIS and Al-Qaeda. These websites allow terrorist run accounts to pool resources and in conjunction with cryptocurrency, allows them to do so nearly anonymously. Social media has regulation but maintaining the online space is extremely costly. Websites like Facebook and Twitter rely on user-submitted reports to monitor the site. This rather lacklustre approach to moderations allows for terrorists to remain active. The anonymous, unregulated nature of cryptocurrency allows these unmonitored accounts to now move funds, as well.

Many of the most popular social media sites have a documented history of allowing or unknowingly fostering communities of terrorists. During the 2010s, it was found that Facebook had not banned several ISIS-affiliated accounts who were using the site for recruitment and funding purposes. Even though these accounts violated their terms of services, they did not ban them. Furthermore, the maintaining of these pro-terror communities creates an echo chamber for such activity. It not only promotes but strengthens support among terror operatives. Furthermore, these groups can establish and coordinate fraudulent non-profit accounts to support their efforts.

The Non-Profit Issue in Serbia

Serbia is a country that has faced the most prominent issues with terrorists using non-profits to fund their operations. Serbia is the ideal place for terrorists to do this for a number of reasons. Their non-profit financial laws are not as strong as other European nations. Serbia is a cash-reliant country, where 30% of the county's transactions are done in cash. Registration laws and checks for charities in the country are also extremely lax, allowing for organizations to establish themselves as non-profit without submitting the proper documentation. Many religious non-profits are exempt from having to submit such documentation, allowing for religious terrorists to infiltrate the sector easily. Serbia has no financial agency dedicated to overseeing the non-profit sector. They only have the conventional police and tax authorities, who are already burdened with other financial enforcement work. Other European nations have regulatory bodies that focus purely on non-profits. This lack of a central non-profit regulator also means that it is harder for these authorities to properly investigate fraudulent charities, as there is no central place to find documentation. When checks are done to new non-profits, they are so loose that they're essentially meaningless. There is no strategy in place for differing authorities to communicate with one another about such issues.

The SBRA is the closest institution Serbia has to a non-profit regulatory body. However, the SBRA performs terribly. They keep little information and fail to do proper background checks. Key data, including the founder of the charity and where they operate, has mostly been lost. In a study, done by the European Union, it was found that there were 58 non-profit organizations active in Serbia and in other locations overseas. There was no documentation, aims, goals, or financial documentation from these 58 organizations. Almost nothing is known about these organizations. These failings make it incredibly easy for terrorists to infiltrate the sector.

Such little documentation and disregard of the rules make it incredibly easy for terrorists to abuse non-profits in Serbia. Of those 58 organizations active overseas, none have their other country listed. They could be active in high-risk areas, such as Syria, Somalia, or Afghanistan, where they could be actively funding terror groups. Thankfully, the European Union has been working closely with Serbia to improve their financial security laws. Even with basic data and documentation checks in place, terrorists will take a massive hit, as their exploitation of non-profits will be evident. The establishment of financial regulatory foundations will be invaluable to countering financial crime in Serbia.

Tags: Financial crime, Money laundering, Fraud prevention, Anti-money laundering (AML), Cybercrime, Financial fraud, Identity theft, White-collar crime, Compliance regulations, Risk management, Fraud detection, Regulatory compliance, Financial security, Insider trading, Banking fraud, Ponzi scheme, Corruption, Cybersecurity, Know Your Customer (KYC),Suspicious activity

The UN's Monitor Report: Fighting Al Qaeda and Islamic State in Africa

On July 24th, the UN Security Council released a Monitor Report on Al Qaeda and Islamic State, updating the world on the ongoing fight against the two largest terror organisations. Though the report looks at multiple areas of the world, in this article we will solely focus on the developments made against the terror groups in the African continent. Updates from other continents will be covered in another article. 

North Africa

In the north of the continent, both terror groups were found to be at their weakest. In the past few years, major affiliate organisations in North Africa have been hit hard. Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) has moved into northern Mali. Islamic State affiliate, Jund al-Khilafah in Tunisia (JAK-T) is facing major financing issues. Following the deaths of many of its prominent members, JAK-T is believed to be hiding in the Samama Mountains in Tunisia. There are believed to be only fifteen members left of this group. 

In Morocco, there has been immense success in fighting these terror organisations. Counter-terror authorities have shut down five terrorist cells that were working with the Core Islamic State organisation or its affiliate in the Great Sahara (ISGS). In total, twenty-five people were arrested, with one cell having plans to rob banks across Morocco to fund IS terror operations.

In Libya, the fight against Islamic State has been frought with difficulty due to the affiliate's connections to organised crime. The affiliate, Islamic State in the Levant-Libya (ISIL-Libya), has close links to organised crime groups that control trafficking routes in the country. The report also suggests that ISIL-Libya are attempting to infiltrate local tribes to aid in recruitment, especially in the south of the country. One of the scariest things revealed by the report is that ISIL-Libya is focusing its efforts on recruiting chemists and scientists in hopes of committing more sophisticated attacks. The group has around three hundred to five hundred members and is currently based in southern Libya, where they are free from Government intervention. The Government in Libya is still unstable and does not have full control over the entire country. The south, and some central regions, are absent from any Government or authority. Their close relationships with organised criminals have allowed them to reorganise themselves in the Fezzan Province. The UN Report also indicates that ISIL-Libya may have training camps in Fezzan, where they train fighters going to West Africa and the Sahel. 

Despite the reorganisation of the group, Libyan authorities have dismantled several terror cells. Most notably, an engineer was arrested when he was attempting to sabotage gas pipelines using armed drones. More concerning, was the handbook retrieved whilst arresting the engineer. The book contained instructions on how to create poison and biological weapons. It is believed these plans come directly from the ISIL Core.

Intelligence gathering against the group has been diligent and thorough, with the structure of the organisation being known. ISIL-Libya is believed to be divided into four sub-groups each specialising in different areas of terror operation. The sub-groups consist of a bombmaking team, a security team, fighters and a military commission. 

Al Qaeda has also entrenched itself in southern Libya. Much like the Islamic State in the south, Al Qaeda uses its position in southern Libya to support its affiliates in the Sahel. The report also indicates that ISIL-Libya and Al-Qaeda in southern Libya collaborate and share resources. Al Qaeda has a much smaller force of only one hundred and fifty to three hundred fighters in southern Libya. Most of these fighters are moving through the area to countries like Niger, Mali and Sudan. It is also believed that these operations are aided by the Tuareg, a semi-nomadic, ethnic group in southern Libya. Intelligence also suggests that Libyan terror groups are using the instability in Sudan to transport fighters to and from West Africa.

Libyan Counter-terror Forces

In Egypt, the Al Qaeda-aligned group Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis (ABM) have been nearly destroyed by counter-terror forces. According to the UN Report, local and core structures of the terror organisation have been largely disbanded. The last major attack by the group occurred in December 2022 and is viewed as an act of desperation, with the group's total members estimated to be in the tens or low hundreds. The group's activities in the Sinai Peninsula have been heavily affected by Egypt's investment in local infrastructure and community outreach. Where local communities once acted as potential recruitment sites for the group, now they are aligned with Egypt's Government. 

West Africa 

In West Africa, affiliate groups play an instrumental role in creating instability. As it becomes more difficult to communicate with the faltering core groups, local affiliates' autonomy is the biggest terror threat in West Africa. One group in particular, Jama'at Nusrat al-Islam Wal-muslimin (JNIM), currently poses the biggest threat to West African nations. Previously, the group were contained in Mali, but now it seems they have ramped up operations in Burkina Faso. It's believed the increase in operations is being done to apply pressure on local authorities during negotiations. With the escalation of the group's tactics, it seems the once Al Qaeda-affiliated group is now distancing itself from the core organisation. Not only is it straying from Al-Qaeda's core doctrine, but also separating itself from local affiliated groups. In battle, JNIM do not fight under the Al Qaeda flag, but under their own banner. JINM's new terror campaign in Burkina Faso has brought with it many issues for the group. Since JNIM encompasses a number of local fighters, usually beliefs and agendas conflict with one another creating tension within the organisation. 

Despite expanding as an organisation, it seems as if JNIM can not compete with the Islamic State in the Great Sahara (ISGS), the IS affiliate in West Africa. The Tri-Border area between Niger, Burkina Faso and Mali has become a warring ground for terror organisations. JNIM has suffered major losses at the hands of ISGS, despite fighting alongside Tuareg Militias in the area. It is important to note that these losses for JNIM in border areas do not reflect the group's control further West. Intelligence suggests that Mali's capital is encircled by JNIM, allowing them full control of the entire area up to the southern border. Through local battalions, JNIM can control local political and security disputes. Mali's weak military is also unable to properly fight back against the terror group. The report also implies that the expanded presence of the Wagner Group has done little to combat the influence of JNIM. From these controlled positions in Mali, JNIM can effectively launch attacks in Burkina Faso and the southern Sahel. 

The strongest of these JNIM battalions is the Katiba Macina, a force which acts almost autonomously from the rest of the JNIM organisation. The Katiba Macina are most active in Burkina Faso, where the force takes advantage of the instability created by locals, making it hard to distinguish between JNIM advances or just community clashes. They also work closely with the rebel group Ansarul Islam. With their most powerful battalion in Burkina Faso, JNIM has a commanding presence over authorities. JNIM's desire to expand to the southern border of Burkina Faso has also created spillover terrorism in regions of Benin, Togo and Niger.

JNIM Fighters in the Sahel

Unlike Al Qaeda affiliates, ISGS remain dedicated to the Core organisation of the Islamic State. The IS affiliate has had some major setbacks with leading members being killed by International forces and by the JNIM. The leadership of ISGS is primarily Arab, with some Fulani deputies. Most of the affiliate's fighters are of Fulani descent. The report believes that this creates a huge potential for infighting and internal descension within the affiliate group. The predominantly Fulani fighting force of ISGS has inadvertently restricted the group's expansion. Many of the Fulani fighters of ISGS do not want to participate in fratricide, as most of the Katiba Macina are also of Fulani descent. This and the fact that ISGS fighters are stretched thin across multiple fronts make the affiliate's advances a lot slower than first expected. Niger seems to be ISGS' new prime target, with multiple attacks taking place across northern regions of the country. These attacks aim to strengthen their supply and recruitment routes from Nigeria. 

Central and Southern Africa

We will start this section by looking at the ongoing situation in Mozambique, where the Islamic State-affiliated terror organisation Ahlu Sunna Wal-Jama (ASWJ) continues its campaign. ASWJ are a smaller force of around one hundred and eighty to two hundred fighters. Despite their size, they carry out attacks relentlessly. Since January, the UN Report states that nearly sixty-five members have been killed. Even though this was a major blow to the terror group, displaced fighters would form small terror cells to continue carrying out attacks. Mozambique and South African Development Community counter-terror forces have launched numerous attacks on the group, targeting their leadership. These have been a success with an overall decrease in terror attacks and civilian deaths.

One way ASWJ is attempting to survive is through inroads with local communities. Specifically trying to forge relationships with farmers and small businesses. The UN Report believes that this is being done in an attempt to sustain the group economically. Despite being an affiliate group of IS, there is no evidence to suggest that ASWJ is taking orders from the Core organisation. Most of the foreign fighters for the group come from surrounding African nations, like Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Somalia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. 

In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, a joint operation between the army and Ugandan forces continues to take place against the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF). Operation Sujaa, as it is known, has been incredibly successful. ADF bases have been raided, over four hundred fighters have been killed, eighty-one were arrested and just over one-hundred and fifty-one abductees were freed. The most notable success of Operation Sujaa was the assassination of Mulalo Seguja, the leader of the ADF's political faction. 

The success of the counter-terror operations has not stopped the ADF's attacks. In the eastern region of North Kivu, the ADF used a large IED to kill sixteen civilians and injure sixty others. The IED was the biggest made by the ADF. The device is believed to have weighed anywhere from seven to ten kilograms. These large explosives seem to be used by a specific ADF General, named Abwakasi. It is thought that over five hundred civilians had been killed by the ADF in the past six months. It is also believed that the ADF has an overall size of one thousand five hundred to two thousand fighters. The group has pledged allegiance to the Islamic State, but there is no evidence they are taking orders from the terror organisation.

East Africa

One of the biggest counter-offensives going on in the continent of Africa right now is the one against Al-Shabaab in Somalia. Airstrikes and raids against leading members have been extremely successful. Leaders of the financial wing of the terror group have been targeted to curb the massive revenue they pull in from extortion. The report estimates that the group collects $100 million per year. The terror group is believed to have between seven thousand to twelve thousand members. 

Retaliatory attacks from Al-Shabaab have occurred, mainly against members of ATMIS, the African Union Transition Mission in Somalia. Just a few months ago, five hundred Al-Shabaab fighters attacked a Ugandan ATMIS military base. ATMIS, Somali and US forces plan on advancing further south as the counter-offensive against the group continues. These southern areas, specifically Middle and Lower Juba, are key locations for the terror group. It is expected that the severity of the fighting will increase, as Al-Shabaab desperately defend these important positions.

Intelligence also suggests that there is a small Islamic State presence in Somalia. The small force of around one hundred to two hundred fighters is located in Puntland. The report suggests the group is struggling to expand due to constant attacks by Al-Shabaab. In January, Islamic State in Somalia was hit hard after one of their chief finance officers was killed by the US. This hurt the group's massive network of financial hubs that they have across Africa. One aspect of the Islamic State in Somalia that the report focused on was the Al-Karrar Office, a financial hub that sends money to other affiliate groups. Some member states believe that the Al-Karrar Office is the financial backbone of the Islamic State, whilst others claim these numbers are overestimated. These other member states believe that the al-Furqan Office in West Africa is the real financial backbone of the group. 

ATMIS Soldiers in Somalia

Many member states also fear that terror groups will take advantage of the current instability in Sudan. Specifically, Islamic State. Since 2019, there has been an IS terror cell in the country led by Abu Bakr Al-Iraqi. Orders from the IS Core tasked the IS leader with creating a terror cell. The cell is believed to be made up of one hundred to two hundred members. Its main purpose seems to be a logistical one, though many member states fear this will change. The report also indicates that Al-Iraqi has set up several fake investment/money-transfer businesses registered in Sudan and Türkiye. Al-Iraqi has also made substantial investments in Sudanese businesses.