Macron threatens to name countries that fail to stop terror funding
French President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday threatened to name and shame countries that did not comply with international measures to battle terrorist financing.
“It will be necessary to name, when the time comes, those who play the game and those who do not play it,” Mr Macron told representatives of more than 70 countries at the No Money for Terror conference in Paris.
The UAE was represented by Dr Anwar Gargash, Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, who called the two-day meeting “a renewed commitment to multilateralism”.
“It is together, collectively, that we can perhaps eradicate or at least reduce the global threat,” Dr Gargash told French media.
Others at the meeting included US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, IMF chief Christine Lagarde and Saudi Foreign Minister Adel Al Jubeir.
Organisers sought greater transparency and co-operation with financial transactions, amid fears that terror groups may be using increasingly complex schemes to transfer funds.
Mr Macron’s office said ISIS gathered about US$2.5 billion (Dh9.18bn) between 2014 and 2106, and that security services identified 416 French donors.
A French official suggested some of this had been moved overseas since the collapse of ISIS’s so-called caliphate.
But he said terrorist attacks in Europe were low-cost. French estimates show the attack on the Bataclan concert hall in November 2015 cost just €80,000 (Dh355,576), while the Charlie Hebdo attack that year is thought to have cost €25,000.
One expert questioned the effect of financial sanctions on the revenue of terror groups.
Peter Neumann, of the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and Political Violence at King’s College London, warned against a focus on the international banking system.
“There has been an exaggerated focus on the formal financial sector,” Mr Neumann said. “You need to follow the money and most of it, especially with Al Qaeda and ISIS, is not in the international financial system.
“Most of the transactions ISIS has made have been in cash. We’ve been spending too much energy and effort looking for terrorist money in banks and international financial institutions.”