BENGALURU: Two decades after 9/11, one of the most significant developments in the US terrorism landscape is the "rising threat posed by domestic violent extremists (DVEs). They rely on self-financing methods and are the most urgent terrorism threat to US national security", states the '2022 National Terrorist Financing Risk Assessment' (NTFRA) by the Department of the Treasury (DoT), the United States, which was out in February.
Since the spring of 2020, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has more than doubled the number of its DVE investigations, from about 1,000 to around 2,700. "Earlier this year, the intelligence and law enforcement communities conducted a comprehensive assessment of the DVE threat and found that DVEs motivated by a range of ideologies and galvanized by recent political and societal events in the United States pose an elevated threat to the United States. The Intelligence Community (IC) assesses that lone offenders or small cells of DVEs adhering to a diverse set of violent extremist ideologies are more likely to carry out violent attacks in the United States than larger organizations that allegedly advocate a DVE ideology," the NTFRA report stated.
Elaborating on their modus operandi, the DoT report stated that the attackers often "radicalize independently by consuming violent extremist material online and mobilize without direction from a violent extremist organization, making detection and disruption difficult. In 2021, the IC has assessed that racially and ethnically motivated violent extremists (RMVEs) and militia violent extremists (MVEs) present the most lethal DVE threats. RMVEs being most likely to conduct mass-casualty attacks against civilians and MVEs typically targeting law enforcement and government personnel and facilities", stated the report on threat analysis.
As the number of DVE movements and ideologies continue to grow in the United States, identifying and understanding the associated Terror Financing (TF) risk has become increasingly important. One of the biggest challenges faced by the law enforcement agencies to track DVEs is largely because they are self-financed through employment income or savings.
"This presents a challenge for financial institutions because the transactional activity is unlikely to look different than the customer's expected activity, based on risk profile. Additionally, DVEs can use a number of generally licit means to fundraise for their illicit activity. Such methods can include crowdfunding (which allows DVEs to cast a wide net via Internet platforms like social media and gaming chatrooms); private donations and membership fees (which are sometimes transacted through virtual assets, making it challenging for authorities to detect); and commercial activities such as the sale of merchandise or entertainment events. Some of these activities may be protected by the First Amendment to the US Constitution," the report stated.
However, DVEs also use a variety of other illegal means like theft, fraud, and drug trafficking to generate revenue to fund their illicit activity. Terrorism remains a significant concern for the United States because terrorist groups at home and abroad still seek to conduct attacks inside the United States.
The country is particularly "vulnerable to terror financing (TF) and other forms of illicit finance because much of the global economy touches the United States or the US financial system, and the United States is the primary trading partner to many other countries. Trade transactions are often denominated in US Dollars and settled with a US Dollar-denominated funds transfer even if a US customer is not a party to the transaction. In addition, US currency is used globally as either the primary or de facto secondary reserve currency or store of value", the report stated.
The terminology and methodology of the 2022 NTFRA are based on the guidance of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), which is the international standard-setting body for AML/CFT safeguards. This report, as well as the 2022 National Money Laundering Risk Assessment (NMLRA) and 2022 National Proliferation Financing Risk Assessment (NPFRA), provide an overview of the current illicit finance risks to the United States.