Madrid bombing verdicts

In October Rabei Osman Sayed Ahmed (UID 109311) the alleged mastermind of the Madrid bombings was acquitted by a Madrid court. Ahmed also known as "Mohamed the Egyptian,” is currently in jail in Italy for belonging to a terrorist organisation. Twenty one other suspects were convicted. These included Jamal Zougam (UID 219105) and Othman el Gnaoui (UID 110365) who were both sentenced to 30 years on each case of individual murder (191) and 20 years for each case (1,824) of attempted murder. Emilio Suarez Trashorras (UID 220081) was the only Spaniard prosecuted. Spanish law precludes the convicted from serving any more than 40 years behind bars. Check out the profile of the Madrid Bombing Cell (UID 545754) to reveal the network of individuals and related terror organisations.

Trial underway for Spanish High Court bomb plotters

Mohammed Boukiri (UID 727977) an Algerian with suspected links to the Matrys for Morocco (UID 568816) terrorist group formed within Spain is currently on trial in Madrid. It is alleged that the suspects planned to drive a truck packed with explosives to the Madrid High Court buildings and blow it up in order to destroy evidence and documentation pertaining to the Madrid Train bombing prosecution. The alleged ringleader is Abderrahmane Tahiri otherwise known as Mohamed Achraf (UID 257122) he is linked to more than 40 other profiles on World-Check. To put all the pieces of the puzzle together check out the Display Graph on his profile.

Suspects ‘trained’ in Southern England

Five suspects are currently on trial in London, Moussa Brown (UID 496521) Kibley da Costa (UID 497457) Muhammed al-Figari (UID 496523) Kader Ahmed (UID 496522) Mohamed Hamid (UID 497456). In April 2006 three of the five are said to have taken part in a four day Al-Qaeda style training camp in the New Forest in Southern England. Hamid has been charged with providing and receiving weapons training, soliciting murder and the possession of terrorist documents. Check out the hyperlink sources to get the full story.

Failed Embassy bomber gets 12 years

US citizen Vo Van Duc (UID 354911) was sentenced to 12 years behind bars by a Thai court for attempting to bomb the Vietnam embassy in Bangkok in June 2001. Four months after he committed that act he was arrested in California, USA and in December 2006 extradited to Bangkok to face terrorism charges.

Two plead guilty to supporting Colombian terrorist

Julio Cesar Lopez (UID 411202 ) and Luis Alfredo Daza Morales (UID 411203) pleaded guilty in a Miami court to conspiring to supply weapons, resources and also to money laundering for the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia aka (FARC). The pair could face up to 15 years in jail and sentencing is set for January 4, 2008. Eight other suspects involved in this case are due to be tried in late January. To see who else is involved take a look at the linked associates on Lopez’s profile.

Romania extradites two to face trial in US

Tariq Mousa al Ghazi (UID 637206) and Luis Felipe Moreno Godoy (UID 637218) were extradited to the US from Romania to face charges of conspiring to kill US nationals and officers, conspiring to acquire anti-aircraft missiles and providing material support to a terrorist organization. Reportedly between February 2006 and May 2007 they conspired with arms dealer Monzer Kassar (UID 67759) in a deal which involved selling millions of dollars worth of weapons and armoury to the FARC.

Suspect with LTTE connections worked at NY airport

Sri Lankan Sivapalasri Velayuthampillai (UID 729650 ) had complete security clearance to work at Newark International airport. Velayuthampillai arrived in the US in 2001 on what has been reported to have been a false passport and was granted political asylum. He was arrested in July this year and linked to an international identity theft and credit card fraud ring with connections to the Tamil Tigers (UID 3219). World-Check has the solution to indentifying falsified travel documents with its unique Passport-Check product available to our Online users. You can check out how Passport-Check works by clicking here.

High ranking LTTE member killed

S P Thamilselvan (UID 341312) has reportedly been killed along with 5 senior military officers of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). Thamilselvan, one of the most senior leaders of the LTTE was essentially the civilian face of the LTTE and had been instrumental in the conventional peace process of the civil conflict. Additionally, being the chief political representative of the LTTE, Thamilselvan was able to travel widely thus making him an important node in the global LTTE network and Diaspora community.

"We started with 27 names of individuals and businesses and instructed the banks to check their records. Since that time to now, that list has grown to over 460. Now we have 460 individuals and entities designated by the Treasury Department who are believed to be involved in funding terrorism. Within the U.S. over $ 200 million of terrorist-related funds have been frozen …. of the 460 names whose bank accounts were frozen, 48 were those of Islamic charities."

Trends in Terror Finance
Part 2 - The Unregulated Sector

This is the second of three reports addressing the unregulated financial sector in regard to its use for the financing of terrorism. The first report discussed the anticipated shift from low-tech informal value transfer systems (IVTS) to increasingly high-tech IVTS. It specifically explored mobile banking (m-banking) as an emerging path for TF. The third report will examine the regulatory challenges and possible responses to high-tech IVTS.

This report examines two additional and interrelated high-tech modalities that are vulnerable to TF: virtual currencies (or ‘e-currencies’) and massive multiplayer online games (MMOGs). Virtual currencies are digitized forms of money issued by private sector companies that function without the backing of national governments. Overlapping with virtual currencies are virtual worlds which are also known as MMOGs. MMOGs are virtual online worlds where hundreds of thousands of people can meet and interact simultaneously via the Wide World Web. Second Life is perhaps the most prominent example. Virtual worlds often contain unregulated economies in which substantial sums of money can be exchanged anonymously without government oversight. E-currencies and MMOGs are generally unregulated and the industries involved have heretofore not undertaken baseline Know-Your-Customer procedures. Therein lies the danger.

Read More...

Note that the Bank of England is no longer issuing the UK sanctions listings, the function has been taken over by HM Treasury Office – for your information the additional World-Check keyword is UKHMT to add to your filter criteria when conducting a UK sanction/watch list search. Please visit here for more detailed information.

The BOE & the UK HM Treasury removed 4 names from their terrorist listings on 11-10-2007 they also added 4 companies and two individuals on the 19-10-2007. Amended a further 22 names on 23-10-2007 and made one amendment on - 29-10-2007.

The US Treasury OFAC made three additions to their terrorism watchlist on 10-10-2007 and on the 25-10-2007 they added two entities.

The United Nations added a further three individuals on 11-10-2007 and amended 23 names on 19-10-2007

The European Union (EU) sanctioning body made 4 additions to their terrorism watchlist on 19-10-2007 .

EVENTS:

This conference will include such topics as: 1) Awareness of the seriousness of money laundering & terrorism financing, 2) Understanding and complying with the requirements laid - down by the regulators, 3) Identifying customers as required by the regulators, 4) Identifying various types of Suspicious Transactions and take the necessary actions required by the law, 5) Taking appropriate measures to prevent attempts by parties to launder money through the organization."

WORLD-CHECK NEWS

To read the first part of our Expert Talk series which is highlighting the Unregulated Sector please just click here . Also a reminder that there are a number of terrorism related working papers available for your perusal here.