ISLAMABAD – The Law Enforcement Agencies and other concerned authoritieshave registered 426 cases and made 574 arrests in money laundering domainas part of their measures adopted to choke financing of terrorists.
A Review-2017, issued by National Counter Terrorism Authority (NACTA) hasrevealed that in Hawala/Hundi domain, 919 cases were registered, 1209arrests made and recovery of amount was Rs.1489.918 million.
Similarly, of the total 207 Suspicious Transaction Reports(STRs) received from Federal Monitoring Unit (FMU), 49 STRs were convertedinto cases and 48 closed and 110 STRs under process.
The initiatives taken under National Action Plan (NAP),NACTA has achieved following : Establishing stringent controls formaking money-transfer system fully protected against misuse by terroristsand terrorist organizations and in monitoring of movement of persons underSchedule IV of ATA, 1997 and of money, to effectively combat moneylaundering/terrorist financing.
Moreover, capacity building of investigators in CFT units and impartingtraining to them in areas of money laundering, terror financing, assetstracing and financial investigation was ensured.
The other achievements were improving registration of cases of terroristfinancing, timely conclusion of investigations, and securing convictionsfrom the courts, regulation of donation collection activities of differentNGOs and control and timely check on people involved in illegal forex trade.
The Review further revealed that in absence of adequate implementationmeasures, terrorists and terrorist organizations could muster funds fromvariety of sources such as charity/alms and other nondescript formal andinformal financial channels.
In countries where banking sector works in isolation from counter-terrorismapparatus, tracking terrorism financing is a gigantic task. Extremistsprimarily collect money as subscription from sympathizers and criminalactivities such as extortion, gunrunning and narcotics trade.
Such groups transfer funds to formal financial system, alternativeremittance services, trade, cash, non-profit organizations and charities:this merits presence of an effective Combating Financing of Terrorism (CFT)regime which has investigative, analytical, deterrent and preventive roles.
In this regard, NACTA has taken some initiatives to choke funding ofterrorists elements and organizations:
These included model law for facilitation and regulations of charities, interms of recommendation no. 5 of the sub-committee, on choking ofterrorists financing, constituted by Prime Minister. Its purpose was toensure that every penny donated into charity is accounted for.
National Task Force – a coordinating body of 20-federal and provincialorganizations, concerned with policy and operational matters was formedpertaining to combating financing of terrorism.
The other steps were regulations and monitoring of cross- border movementof currency and effective regulation of branchless/internet banking anddeveloping Units for Countering Financing of Terrorism (CFT Units) inprovincial CTDs.