NEW DELHI: Exhorting member states of the No Money for Terror (NMFT) ministerial conference to agree on “one common definition of terrorism and terror financing” without allowing it to “become a political issue”, Union Home Minister Amit Shah said on Saturday that preventing the “use of non-profit organisations” and the “NPO sector to spread terror ideology” should be a “priority”.
Speaking at the concluding day of the NMFT conference, Shah referred to the ban imposed against the Popular Front of India (PFI) which “conspired to radicalise the youth and push them towards terrorism”.
In this context, he said that “under the guise of other motives, some organisations promote terrorism and radicalisation at the national and international levels. It has also been found that these organisations tend to become the medium of financing terrorism”.
Impressing upon the delegates to adopt a long-term strategy against terror financing, Shah chalked out some “priority issues” such as “preventing diversion of legal financial instruments by fighting anonymity in financial networks”, “restricting the use of the proceeds of other crimes for terrorist activities” and stopping the “use of financial technologies, virtual assets like crypto-currencies, wallets etc for terror activities. Pointing out that the thrust should be to “eliminate the use of illegal channels, cash couriers and hawala by terror networks”, Shah said that there should be “continuous capacity building of counter-terror and financial intelligence agencies”.
Citing IMF and World Bank data, Shah said that international criminals launder about $2 to $4 trillion every year and a “major part of it goes to fuel terrorism. Identifying “five pillars” that must be central to combating terror financing, Shah said that the first was to “establish a comprehensive monitoring framework involving cooperation, coordination and collaboration among all intelligence and investigative agencies”.
The second, according to Shah, should be adopting a strategy to “trace, target and terminate” low-level offences as well as more “organised economic crimes”. Thirdly, legal structures related to terror finance must be strengthened and harmonised.
Shah said that in the course of the conference deliberations India “sensed the need for permanency” for the NMFT initiative as means to “sustain the continued global focus on countering the financing of terrorism”. According to the home minister, the “time is ripe for a permanent secretariat to be established”.
He said that in this regard India will shortly circulate a discussion paper among all “participating jurisdictions” for their comments. Holding that the success of the NMFT platform depended on a “beyond-border cooperation” among member states, Shah said this approach would help stop the “borderless finance movement that supports terrorism”.