Modern-day Bletchley Park to tackle terror finance networks

[R. A. Hettinga]

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  Date: Fri, 10 Feb 2006 20:22:03 -0500
  To: Philodox Clips List <clips at philodox.com>
  From: "R. A. Hettinga" <rah at shipwright.com>
  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 <mailto: rah at ibuc.com>
  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 <mailto: rah at ibuc.com>
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'