Security Council - Counter-Terrorism Committee (CTC) - terrorism financing

CTED Executive Director participates in international conference on terrorism financing

AKHVEDELID — Mon, 30 Apr 2018 05:47:00 +0000

paris_tf_conference_april_2018-1024x768.jpg

USG Voronkov, ASG Coninsx, and representative of the Government of France.

On 25-26 April 2018, Assistant Secretary-General Michèle Coninsx, Executive Director of the United Nations Counter-Terrorism Committee Executive Directorate (CTED), participated in an international conference on counter-financing of terrorism (CFT) organized by the Government of France. Entitled “No Money for Terror,” the conference aimed to take stock of current global CFT efforts; support effective implementation of the relevant international standards; and shed light on new terrorism-financing trends and methods.

Held in Paris and hosted by President Emmanuel Macron, the conference was attended by representatives of more than 80 Member States, including Ministers, as well as by heads of numerous international and regional organizations and agencies.

In her intervention, Ms. Coninsx briefed participants on CTED’s main findings with respect to Member States’ criminalization of terrorism financing, based on its 140 assessment visits. The Executive Director noted that a growing number of States were criminalizing terrorism financing as a standalone offence, but that the number of terrorism-financing cases being successfully prosecuted by Member States’ judicial systems remained limited. Attempts to prosecute terrorism financing continued to be undermined by, inter alia, the difficulty of proving knowledge or intent that the funds would be used for terrorism purposes.

The UN team included Under-Secretary-General Vladimir Voronkov, Head of the United Nations Office of Counter-Terrorism (UNOCT), representing Secretary-General António Guterres; experts of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime; and an expert of the Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team of the 1267/1989/2253 ISIL (Da’esh) and Al-Qaida Sanctions Committee.

At the conclusion of the conference, a politically binding declaration was adopted. This declaration defines a number of priority action areas, including preventing the misuse of non-profit organizations (NPO) for terrorism-financing purposes, and promoting cooperation between Government and the private sector, involving social media, to prevent terrorists from raising and transferring funds online. The Declaration also calls on Governments to publicize asset-freezing designations made pursuant to Security Council resolution 1373 (2001).

On the margins of the conference, Ms. Coninsx met with Mr. Santiago Otamendi, President of the Financial Action Task Force, to discuss cooperation between CTED and FATF, with a special focus on Member States’ implementation of the international CFT standards.

Front Page Article:

Packed agenda for last CTC plenary meeting of the year

BMUSONI — Fri, 15 Dec 2017 15:07:00 +0000

img_8358_edited.jpg

14 December 2017 marked the 326th meeting of the Security Council Counter-Terrorism Committee, which was also the last meeting of H.E. Ambassador Amr Abdellatif Aboulatta, Permanent Representative of Egypt to the United Nations, in his capacity as Chair of the Committee. The plenary had a packed agenda, covering numerous themes, including terrorism financing, and a future vision for the Counter-Terrorism Committee Executive Directorate (CTED).

Mr. Santiago Otamendi, President of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), briefed the Committee on the work of FATF and cooperation between the United Nations and FATF (read CTED’s interview with President Otamendi here). Mr. Max Braun of the Luxembourg Financial Intelligence Unit and Ms. Dawn Peebles of SITE Intelligence Group also provided presentations on challenges faced in the regulation of transactions and prevention of the misuse of new social media technologies for purposes of the financing of terrorism. Mr. Braun focused on the issue of anti-money laundering/combating the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) regulation of virtual currency exchange platforms, emphasizing the importance of tracing and monitoring transactions to find links to identify terrorists and terrorist networks. Ms. Peebles highlighted the misuse of social media, bitcoin, and familiar third-party transaction platforms to fund the purchase of weapons, equipment, supplies, and resources including human services.

In presenting proposed recommendations to the Committee regarding the role of financial institutions, CTED encouraged Member States to assess the terrorist risks of their financial sector, in line with FATF standards, and to apply anti-money laundering/combating the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) obligations to those respective products and services of their financial sector. CTED experts also suggested that Members “develop or strengthen the partnership between public and private sector entities for the sharing of financial intelligence aimed at preventing terrorist attacks and identifying and dismantling terrorist networks.”

Executive Director of CTED, Assistant Secretary-General Ms. Michèle Coninsx, briefed the Committee on the future work of CTED as the Security Council was currently discussing the mandate renewal of CTED. Ms. Coninsx spoke about strengthening CTED’s assessments and methodologies, as assessments are the heart of CTED’s activity, and reinforced CTED’s aim of improving through “dynamism, flexibility, speed, creativity, and innovation.”

“It takes networks to beat criminal and terrorist networks,” she said. “Every effort should be made to enforce comprehensive approaches to counter terrorism.”

Documents

Remarks by the FATF President are available here.

Front Page Article:

Packed agenda for last CTC plenary meeting of the year

BMUSONI — Fri, 15 Dec 2017 15:07:00 +0000

img_8369_edited.jpg

“It takes networks to beat criminal and terrorist networks,” she said. “Every effort should be made to enforce comprehensive approaches to counter terrorism.”

Documents

Remarks by the FATF President are available here.

Front Page Article:

Counter-Terrorism Committee discusses threats posed by financing of terrorism

BMUSONI — Fri, 27 Oct 2017 16:03:00 +0000

img_7147.jpg

On 26 October 2017, the Security Council Counter-Terrorism Committee held a plenary meeting to discuss public and private partnerships in the fight against the financing of terrorism. Three external experts addressed the Committee on the issue. Mr. Bruno Dalles, Director of the Financial Intelligence Unit (TRACFIN) of France, briefed the Committee inter alia on the value of financial intelligence in counter-terrorism efforts in France. Mr. Paul Horlick, Director and Head of the Financial Intelligence Unit at Barclays Bank, discussed with the Committee the involvement of financial institutions in a dedicated public and private information-sharing platform in the United Kingdom. Finally, Ms. Roseanne Lazer, Compliance Officer at TransferWise Inc., briefed the Committee on the internal compliance policy of her company, as online money-remitter in mitigating terrorist financing risks.

Also during the plenary meeting, CTED provided an overview of its recent report on gaps and recommendations relating to international law enforcement and judicial cooperation pursuant to Security Council resolution 2322 (2016). The report highlights selected challenges to international law enforcement and judicial cooperation, and provides recommendations to the Committee on how to address these gaps, inter alia by identifying good practices of cooperation against FTFs, promoting effective, human-rights complaint MLA and extradition practices, and encouraging the development of guidelines on the sharing of information and evidence for criminal prosecution purposes.

Front Page Article:

Chile’s Financial Analysis Unit and Ministry for External Relations convene international experts in terrorism financing workshop

BMUSONI — Mon, 11 Sep 2017 14:07:00 +0000

apec-minrel-uaf_noviembre_2017_cropped.jpg

For three days, representatives of the economies of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Forum met in Santiago, Chile, to analyze the sanctions regimes of the Security Council of the United Nations related to terrorism and terrorist financing.

“Halting terrorist financing: APEC workshop on targeted financial sanctions regime,” hosted by APEC, was inaugurated on 6 November 2017 by the Directors of the institutions organizing the event, Javier Cruz Tamburrino of the Financial Analysis Unit (UAF), and Frank Tressler from the Directorate of International and Human Security (DISIN) of the Ministry for External Relations of Chile.

On the first day of the workshop, presentations were provided by Javier Martínez with the Counter-Terrorism Committee Executive Directorate (CTED) of the United Nations; Juan Cruz Ponce with the Financial Action Task Force of Latin America (Gafilat); and Esteban Fullin, Advisor on Anti-Money Laundering and Financing of Terrorism for Latin America and the Caribbean, with the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

On 7 November, Hagan Barnett (Head of the Anti-Terrorism Section of the Office of Foreign Assets Control of the United States Department of the Treasury), Dmitry Vitashov (Deputy Head of the Department of Counter-Terrorist Financing of Rosfinmonitoring, Russian Federal Financial Monitoring System), and James Nachipo (Director of the Terrorism Branch of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade of Australia) shared their countries’ experience in the implementation of UN Security Council resolutions 1267 (1999) and 1373 (2001) (on terrorism and the financing of terrorism), and the Recommendations of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF).

Javier Martínez outlined the obligations that the resolutions of the UN Security Council impose on countries to maintain or restore international peace and security, especially after the terrorist attacks perpetrated against the United States on 11 September 2001. Mr. Martínez presented asset freezing requirements under resolution 1373 (2001) and how they differ from the asset freezing provisions contained in resolutions 1267 (1999) and subsequent ones; he also briefly presented resolution 2178 (2014) on stemming the flow of foreign terrorist fighters.

Juan Cruz Ponce explained the scope of FATF Recommendations no. 5, 6, and 7 on financial sanctions aimed to counter terrorism, the financing of terrorism, and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. The UN Security Council resolutions require countries to freeze funds or other assets without delay, and to ensure that no funds or other assets are made available, directly or indirectly, to the persons or entities included in the Lists of the UN Security Council’s Sanctions Committees.

Meanwhile, Esteban Fullin briefed on emerging risks in terrorism financing, including new payment methods used by foreign terrorist fighters, as well as possible links with organized crime, and described the risks involved for non-profit organizations that are exploited for the financing of terrorism.

The event concluded on 8 November with practical exercises, in which the representatives of Australia, Chile, China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mexico, Peru, the Philippines, Russia, South Korea, Thailand, the United States, and Vietnam had to detect the existence of terrorist financing in various operations and transactions.

Participants included experts from the National Intelligence Agency, the Public Prosecutor’s Office, the Carabineros de Chile, the Investigation Police, the National Customs Service, the Financial Analysis Unit, the Supreme Court, and the Ministries of Foreign Affairs, the Interior, and Public Safety.

In thanking APEC for its support, the Director of the UAF, Javier Cruz Tamburrino, expressed his appreciation for the workshop “because it allows all of us to train and improve our abilities and skills that are required to effectively detect terrorist financing operations”.

“Knowing how to implement systems and use good practices from other economies in order to prevent and detect money laundering and the financing of terrorism is key to strengthening the legal mission of the UAF, especially after the publication, in February 2015, of the modifications to our Law No. 19.913 that empowers us not only to detect signs of terrorist financing in suspicious transactions reported by our obligated parties, but also to adopt measures, for example, to freeze assets, in case of accrediting acts or transactions of persons or entities listed in the Lists of the Security Council of the United Nations,” he concluded.

Front Page Article: