Nations must cooperate to fight terror financing: FATF watchdog chief

PARIS: Countries must work together to combat the financing of terrorism, the president of the international terrorist financing and money-laundering watchdog FATF, told AFP on Tuesday.

“The terrorists respect no border. They have no limit. So countries cannot have the luxury of not working together. We need to cooperate,” said Elisa de Anda Madrazo ahead of a gathering on combatting terrorism financing on the sidelines of the G7 finance ministers’ meeting in Paris.

The Financial Action Task Force (FATF), based in the French capital, is an international body that reviews efforts by more than 200 countries and jurisdictions to prevent money laundering and terrorism financing.

It compiles a “grey list” of nations that are subject to increased monitoring of financial transactions.

De Anda Madrazo’s comments come as international cooperation and multilateral tactics have taken a hit due to hardening stances of major powers, in particular the United States, Russia, and China.

“We need to exchange information,” she said, citing as an example the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris.

“There were diverse terrorist attacks that were destroyed and stopped because of financial intelligence. So we know it works and we know it can deter the attacks. There’s no luxury to stop cooperation. We need to work stronger together and closer together,” she said.

At the fifth “No money for terror” conference, which brings together several dozen delegations, the goal is to “continue working so we can keep up with innovations, adapt methods and tools, and share best practices”, according to the French presidency.

Intelligence services have observed a fragmentation of terrorist threats, particularly jihadist, marked by the weakening of Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State group, to the benefit of their territorial offshoots, and by the rise of domestic threats from lone individuals.

Financing channels and technological tools have also evolved.

“The panorama that we have now is completely different than the one that we had in 2018 when this conference started. Back in the day it was more centralised,” de Anda Madrazo said.

“Today we have virtual assets, we have digitalisation and an economy that has a different architecture. And the combination of the traditional mechanisms and the new technologies is indeed a challenge for the authorities to tackle as a risk.”