Author: Pradeep Thakur
Publication: The Times of India
Date: August 16, 2006
Introduction: Lashkar Used Charity Cover To
Keep Transactions Secret
Tayib Rauf, one of the key accused in the
UK terror plot, paid $189,000 in cash for a house in Birmingham on his 20th
birthday in March 2004. Two months later, another accused, 24-yearold Khuram
Shazad Ali, bought a house in High Wycombe for $378,000 and another one in
the same neighbourhood for $359,000, all paid for in cash.
Investigators, who on Tuesday arrested the
25th suspect in the terror plot, have found that huge wire transfers had taken
place from Pakistan to low-income customers in the UK whose families had immigrated
from Pakistan. The finding highlights the role alert financial institutions
can play in blocking the flow of clandestine money for possible use by terror
networks. Sadly, it also brings out the continuing laxity on the part of financial
institutions in monitoring even those transactions which prima facie look
dubious and the ability of terror groups to exploit the loopholes that have
remained despite the stricter vigil globally post-9/11.
The probe suggests that those behind the UK
terror plot successfully worked their way around the filters put in place
in the aftermath of the 2001 attacks in New York by using the Jamaat-ud-Dawa,
the charity cover used by the Lashkar-e-Taiba. Experts argued that heightened
vigil could have easily sniffed the mismatch between the high-volume transactions
and the modest net worth of the recipients.
For the intelligence community here, the development
is yet another instance of terrorist organisations using religious charities
to disburse funds for their members in different countries. Some big Saudi
religious charities which dispense huge amounts have been under the scanner,
with the government even taking up the matter with Riyadh. Top intelligence
sources said a close watch was being kept on some of the charities in the
aftermath of the bomb attacks in Mumbai.
