More on this story. "Small money transfers finance terror," by Victor L. Simpson for the Associated Press:
MILAN, Italy - Prosecutors call it terrorism on the cheap.
Every few weeks, the Tunisians would stop at a bank or Western Union office and wire funds to a city in Europe or the Middle East. No one took much notice. The sums were small — sometimes only a few hundred dollars — and thousands of other people were doing the same thing across Italy, many of them immigrant workers sending money home.
This group, however, allegedly had dark motives.
In June, Italian officials broke up the ring with the arrest of four people, three in Milan and one in London, after examining financial records showing a steady transfer of funds allegedly used to recruit Islamic extremists and send them to terrorist training camps in Afghanistan.
"They were small amounts, below the limits that require reporting," said an assessment by Italian financial police.
The Associated Press interviewed key officials and uncovered previously undisclosed details about how terrorist cells move money — often by transferring sums so small they elude programs that track terrorist financing. It's a loophole that raises questions about the effectiveness of the vast post-9/11 effort governments have made to choke off funding.
[...]
In its recruiting activities, the cell uncovered by Italian authorities provided false documents, as well as apartments, cars and communication devices registered under false names. Ramondini said it is suspected of providing logistical and financial support to an al-Qaida affiliate linked to April bombings in Algiers that killed 30 people.
Italian law only requires transfers above $14,400 to be reported to Italy's Foreign Exchange Office. Senders of smaller sums must show IDs, which officials acknowledge can be forged.
Despite the tightening of other laws since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States, the limit for automatic reporting has remained much the same in Europe.
As shown by the arrests of militants in Germany and Denmark for allegedly planning bomb attacks, one thing is clear: Europe with its growing immigrant populations and open borders has become a major target for Islamic radicals.
An interesting detail:
While authorities have given few details, the reports of the lifestyles of the suspects — the Germans were unemployed and living on welfare — and the kind of chemicals they were allegedly using was an indication that great expense was not involved.
[...]
Ramondini, the prosecutor, emphasized that the money transfer agencies did no wrong and that it would be unreasonable to demand more of them.
"You would bring the economy to a halt," he said.
Then you'll just have to pay closer attention to who is in your country.
Col. Antonio Grimaldi of the Guardia di Finanza, who led the Milan investigation, said Islamic extremists are increasingly resorting to small transfers to evade detection.
Sorry, Off topic: Please help debunk the Islamofascist propaganda about Israel being spewed here by some commenters:
http://iranian.com/main/2007/threes-company
being a pain in the ass and overtaxing the system jihad
Yes, it's so strange.. we have these for the most part both hostile and useful people in our lands and they send money for jihad..
So will they be thrown OUT if Italy for sending money to people who plan to kill Italians, among other "infidels"?
And B. what is so hard to understand about the concept of: If they are NOT in Italy [or any other Western country] then they can DO NO harm!
Capisce??!!
Just walk your welfare payment to Western Union, easy. Then send the kids out to beg from those nice Europeans, or American tourists, all for Mo's jihad... Easy, yeehaah!
An American Expat in Southeast Asia has explained a similar scheme operated by the Muslim moneychangers in Singapore:
http://laotze.blogspot.com/2005/05/al-qaeda-tours-and-travel-if-you-have.html
This partly explains how Muslims are able to protest in the street about some alleged insult or other, but with no obvious counter-demonstration.
Many of the jihadists don't work. Abu Hamza was a particularly prominent example, and his family - Egyptian immigrants - still lives on welfare in the UK. By contrast, I'm sure that the vast majority of those of us who are fully aware of and oppose the jihadist threat work full time.
So we have a situation where Muslims can protest in the street, funded by the tax-payer.
We are literally paying jihadists to attack us. Richard Coeur de Lion must be turning in his grave.
"How small money transfers from Europe help finance jihad"
It's not all about big attacks involving dead and maimed. It's about leveraging every opportunity to cause financial hemorraging throughout the West. It's about Moslem operatives living off the welfare system. It's about polygamous Moslem males further stressing the social welfare net with multiple wives and resultant progeny. It's about raised security requirements and the attendant overhead; at the airport, at the polling stations, at sports events, at religious events, at any venue where people gather in numbers. It's about accompanying costs for every demand put upon public money for the purpose of accommodating some Moslem "need," a recent example being foot baths. It is lost time due to denied service because a Moslem cab driver enforces his religion upon a would-be passenger.
The jihadis have been making small money transfers for a long time, from the pockets of the taxpayers to their central governments.
Hell, the Mexicans have been doing this for years.....
The terrorists were "unemployed and living on welfare."
In other words, the terrorists were simultaneously LEECHING off of the taxpayers while plotting to MURDER the taxpayers.