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Date: Fri, 10 Feb 2006 20:22:03 -0500
To: Philodox Clips List
From: "R. A. Hettinga"
Subject: Modern-day Bletchley Park to tackle terror finance networks
http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,,5397312-111274,00.html
Modern-day Bletchley Park to tackle terror finance networks
Patrick Wintour, chief political correspondent and Ashley Seager in Moscow
Saturday February 11, 2006
Guardian
Gordon Brown will next week announce plans to create a modern-day Bletchley
Park of experts working at unravelling terrorist finance networks just as
wartime codebreakers collaborated on cracking Nazi codes. The chancellor
will emphasise that cutting off the cash flow that subsidises terrorism
will play a vital role in preventing further attacks.
He will commit new money to establish the centre, which will bring together
some of the top financial experts in the country, and will announce new
measures to close loopholes exploited by terrorist moneymen. "As chancellor
... I have found myself immersed in measures designed to cut off the
sources of terrorist finance," Mr Brown will say. "And I have discovered
that this requires an international operation using modern methods of
forensic accounting as imaginative and pathbreaking for our times as the
Enigma codebreakers at Bletchley Park achieved more than half a century
ago."
Since 9/11, the UK has frozen #80m in terrorist assets, including money in
more than 100 organisations linked to al-Qaida. This week, America blocked
the US assets of five people and four groups based in Britain for alleged
collections to a group that Washington suspects has ties to al-Qaida. Mr
Brown wants his fellow rich-world finance ministers to prioritise the
battle with terrorist financing at this weekend's G8 meeting that Russia is
chairing in Moscow. He has also written to the Financial Action Task Force
(FATF), which spearheads action against the abuse of the financial system
by terrorists, to propose that the UK takes over the presidency of the body
next year.
The main theme of Mr Brown's speech to the Royal United Services Institute
on Monday, will be the balance between security and liberty and the gradual
move to a framework of stronger laws and powers to tackle terrorists.
Specifically, Mr Brown will announce:
7 a review of measures to stop charities being abused by those financing
terror;
7 proposals to tackle terrorist abuse of bureaux de change and wire
transfers;
7 guidance to banks and financial institutions on how to fulfil their
obligations to tackle suspicious transactions;
7 a commitment to continue strengthening the pre-emptive asset-freezing
regime, with a review of the need for further new legislation or a single
asset-freezing office.
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R. A. Hettinga
The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation http://www.ibuc.com/
44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
"... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to
experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'
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R. A. Hettinga
The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation http://www.ibuc.com/
44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
"... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to
experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'
