CUSTOMS LAUNCHES MULTI-AGENCY INITIATIVE TO TARGET TERRORIST FUNDING

CUSTOMS LAUNCHES MULTI-AGENCY INITIATIVE TO TARGET TERRORIST FUNDING    The U.S. Customs Service has started working with other federal agencies to target and stop terrorist money flows.
   Dubbed “Operation Green Quest,” the agencies will target fraudulent import/export schemes, cash smuggling, credit card fraud, and other activities that provide financial support to terrorists.
   The operation will comprise investigators from the U.S. Treasury and Justice departments, including officials from Customs, the Internal Revenue Service, the Secret Service and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
   “The lifeblood of terrorism is money,” said Michael Chertoff, assistant attorney general. “And if we can cut the money, we can cut the blood supply.”
   Led by Customs, “Operation Green Quest” will operate as an investigative arm for Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control and other agencies tracking terrorist funding activities. Agency officials said they will intensify their focus on “hawala,” an informal money-moving system commonly used by terrorists through the use of codewords, wire transfers, transborder cargo schemes and smuggling money through suitcases.
   Treasury Deputy Secretary Kenneth Dam said the operation will use information from the agencies’ systems and other organizations to expand investigations, which will result in criminal prosecutions, blocking orders and other actions. He added that the United States will rely on depended on assistance from foreign countries to stop terrorist funding.
   Dam said U.S. military air strikes on the Taliban in Afghanistan may not be enough to thwart terrorism, “but you cannot dive bomb a foreign bank account,” he said.
   Outside Washington, the operation will have forces pursuing terrorist financing. Each of these units will be modeled after an existing money-laundering task force in New York, the “El Dorado Task Force.” The first office will be located at the Customs special agent-in-charge office in New York, and will operate as a component of El Dorado. U.S. Customs Commissioner Robert Bonner said that other offices with the same operations will follow in Los Angeles and Detroit, with other locations soon to follow.