Background
Popular depictions abound of criminal financing through racketeering and organised crime, as have been delivered by Hollywood productions such as The Godfather, The Sopranos, and The Wire. Counter-terrorism financing (CTF) is a somewhat less glamorised aspect of the genre, as represented by the likes of 24 and Homeland. Nevertheless, much public interest was aroused by the real deal, such as the Osama bin Laden Document Release by the US Director of National Intelligence and based on materials seized in the Abbottabad raid of 2011, which revealed some fascinating insights into the business of terrorism.1
The generation of public attention through not only popular culture but also governmental promotion might be viewed by some commentators as whipping up a climate of undue fear for ulterior political motives.2 However, governments seem to have been vehement about their own rhetoric. For instance, the UK government in its policy statement, National Security Strategy and Strategic Defence and Security Review 2015: A Secure and Prosperous United Kingdom,3 depicts terrorism as a Tier 1 national security threat, while serious and organised crime is within Tier 2. These ratings entail real consequences in terms of political priorities, the allocation of resources, and the endless generation of legislation.
Consequently, organised crime and transnational terrorism are perceived as posing significant and unrelenting threats to the integrity, security, and stability of contemporary societies. In response, conventional policing responses have struggled to make a sufficient impact, as demonstrated by the churn of organisational and operational models. As a result, there arise the predominantly criminal threats from drug trafficking, fraud, human trafficking, identity theft, intellectual property crime, and counterfeiting, which have been tackled by successive policing and executive agencies which implement specialist legislation. The current approach is to adopt anti-money laundering measures to prevent ‘dirty money’ from infiltrating the legitimate economy, and asset recovery powers to target the accumulated financial assets of those engaged in criminal activity.
Following the financial trails of terrorists has been less prominent as a driver of change, at least until 9/11, since the sums involved are much lower. There is some melding with criminal activities, especially in the case of hierarchical and geographically focused terrorism such as in Northern Ireland and the Basque region of Spain.4 However, following 9/11, the international community has now in an increasingly shrill voice demanded action by way of CTF. The demand was first signalled by the UN Convention on the Suppression of Terrorist Finance 19995 and by UN Security Council Resolution 1267 of 15 October 1999, followed up by a stream of further resolutions, notably, 1333 of 19 December 2000 (dealing with Al-Qa’ida) and 1373 of 28 September 2001 (against terrorism in all guises) through to numbers 2178 and 2253 in 2014 and 2015 (dealing with ‘foreign terrorist fighters and Islamic State). This range of international edicts must be reflected and applied by national legislation. There remain distinctions between criminal money laundering and counter-terrorism financing, such as an emphasis on intelligence gathering as much as the negation of the value of criminal enterprise. At the same time, there are also parallels and cross-fertilisation of ‘lessons learnt’, highlighted by the frequent application of criminal proceeds of crime laws in the UK to terrorism assets6 and by the decision in 2013 of the UK government to apply formal counter-terrorism strategy to tackling serious and organised crime.7 Those aspects of terrorism which relate to financing may operate as just a subsidiary aspect of the full risk picture, but it is one which has become of enduring interest. Thus, one angle of the investigation into the London Bridge attacks in June 2017 immediately became the use of a credit card to hire a heavy lorry (which was declined and resulted in the hiring of a light van).8 This may seem like a minor detail in the circumstances of such an outrage, but one can predict that such data will not only figure in subsequent investigations but also will translate eventually into extra regulatory checks, just as bomb ingredients based on fertiliser or bleach products have resulted in the imposition of extra restrictions over time.9
In the US context, the expressed resolve to deal with these threats of criminal and terrorism financing is arguably even more trenchant. ‘Crime incorporated’10 is a long-standing prime mission of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), at least when not preoccupied with race and Reds.11 That agenda is outstripped now by counter-terrorism, which mobilises not only the FBI but also the whole nation under the joint resolution of the House of Representatives and the Senate, the Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF). This instrument affords the President broad powers as Commander in Chief to ‘…use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harboured such organizations or persons’.12 The ensuing ‘war on terror’13 has persisted without end for more than a decade, despite doubts during the era of President Obama that the AUMF was not tenable in the future and that a major tactic, detention of suspects at Guantánamo, must be ended.14 Yet, the AUMF outlived the Obama administration, and the emergence of drones during his tenure has affected far more terrorist suspects than were ever held at Guantánamo.15
Based on the foregoing survey, the importance of the agendas of anti-money laundering (AML), asset recovery (AR), and counter-terrorism financing (CTF) cannot be doubted. But there is room for doubt about many aspects of these agendas. Our scepticism may be driven by the inadequate collection or release of official data and by an absence of comprehensive evidence-led independent research. The gaps are especially apparent in ‘follow the money’ approaches to tackling financial-based crime. ‘Following the money’ represents an alterna...