Al-Qaeda escapes assets freeze23May02 OSAMA bin Laden's al-Qaeda...

Al-Qaeda escapes assets freeze

23May02

OSAMA bin Laden's al-Qaeda network appears to have shunted funds into diamonds and gold, and to be using the Internet to get round a freeze on its assets, experts monitoring United Nations sanctions have said.

In a report to the Security Council, the group said all countries trading in rough diamonds should join the Kimberley process, which aims to set up an international certification scheme for the stones.
It gave no estimates of the amount of funds al-Qaeda was alleged to have converted into precious stones, including sapphires and lapis lazuli, and said the allegations remained unconfirmed.

"Another way in which criminals and terrorists move their money to avoid detection is by means of the Internet," the report said.

It said it was "particularly concerned about the use of the Internet by al-Qaeda and its associates" for communications, command, control and logistics as well as to evade the assets freeze.

The monitoring group was set up by council Resolution 1390, adopted on January 16, which extended sanctions on al-Qaeda and on the former Afghan Taliban regime so as to strike at terrorist cells anywhere in the world.

US President George W Bush accused bin Laden of masterminding the attack which destroyed the World Trade Centre in New York on September 11, 2001 and launched the huge military campaign in Afghanistan to topple the Taliban.

While UN sanctions are mandatory on all member states, the monitoring group reported only limited success so far in implementing them.

Regretting the lack of transparency between countries, it said some had been extremely helpful but "the reluctance of others to provide information could be described as almost obstructive".

The report said, by the end of March, no fewer than 144 countries had issued blocking orders in the context of Bush's war on terrorism.

"As a result of these orders, $US103.8 million ($187.89 million) in assets have been blocked worldwide since September 11," it said.

But figures quoted in the report indicated that that was only 0.02 per cent of the amount of money that is laundered globally each year.

The Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering of the Paris-based OECD estimated the total at between $US500 billion and $US1 trillion, it said.

On May 15, the head of the Italian secret service, Nicolo Pollari, told a conference on terrorism in Priverno, southern Italy, al-Qaeda had assets worth around $US5 billion .

These assets generated income of about $US50 million a year, he said.