Editor’s Note: See also Cigarette Smuggling and Cyber Security: Low-Tech Crimes Fund High-Tech Threats.
From: bitcoin
Jeffrey Gogo
Terror financing is taking on a new shape, but still retaining its old aides. Environmental crimes such as wildlife trafficking and illegal ivory sales have overtaken the drug trade as the major income source for terrorists around the world, accounting for more than a third of their revenue. However, it is not cryptocurrency that is helping non-state militias and terrorist groups fuel conflict in countries like Syria, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Afghanistan. Rather, banks, human mules and fake companies are the preferred and dominant conduits.
Environmental crimes such as illegal logging and the ivory trade have now overtaken drug money as the biggest source of funding for militias and terrorist organizations worldwide – and they aren’t using cryptocurrency to do so – a new report by Interpol has revealed.
