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Islamic State makes $323 million from smuggling migrants into Europe

May 16, 2015 10:50 pm By Robert Spencer

refugeesDenmarkAnd if a few jihadi “refugees” make it into Europe, so much the better. “ISIS Makes a Fortune From Smuggling Migrants Says Report,” by Vivienne Walt, Time, May 13, 2015 (thanks to The Religion of Peace):

The movement of migrants across the Middle East and Africa towards Europe has generated up to $323 million for the Islamic State in Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS) and other jihadist groups, a new report has revealed.

Many of the migrants embark from Libya on unseaworthy boats which have foundered with thousands drowning and thousands being rescued by European navies. At least 170,000 refugees made the sea journey last year, and that number looks likely to increase this year, according to the European Union’s border-surveillance organization Frontex.

European Union and African officials are scrambling to find ways to stop the migration. On Wednesday the Guardian revealed a 19-page E.U. strategy report to crack down on the smugglers, which included air strikes on boats and possibly the use of troops in Libya.

But while E.U. officials anguish over the plight of people crossing the Mediterranean to get to Europe, the migration has proved an invaluable business opportunity for groups like ISIS. So valuable that international crime experts believe ISIS might have launched some attacks specifically in order to drive people to flee, and then profit from their flight. “They [ISIS] were looking desperately for new funds,” says Christian Nelleman, director of the Norwegian Center for Global Analysis, or RHIPTO, who co-authored this week’s report with the Geneva-based Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, a consortium of organized-crime experts. “Unlike al-Qaeda, ISIS needs a totally different scale of funds because they run an army and provide social services,” he says.

ISIS’s sources of funding appear to have changed markedly since 2014. For much of last year, ISIS brought in funds from oil smuggling — a key reason why its fighters seized oil facilities in Syria and Iraq —with oil trading earning up to $3 million a day, according to U.N. estimates. But those earnings have crashed, perhaps by half, since last August, when the U.S. and its allies began bombing ISIS oil facilities, according to a Western intelligence report from last January, which was shared with TIME this week. The report estimates that ISIS needs between $523.5 million and $815.3 million a year to run its operations, including to pay its fighters, run social services, and buy weapons and ammunition.

Aside from oil, ISIS has recently earned between $22 million and $55 million a year taxing antiquities smugglers, who traffic looted objects out of Syria and Iraq, and between $168 million and $228 million a month taxing small businesses and residents in ISIS-controlled areas, according to the January intelligence report, which said ISIS has “a robust budget for a group numbering in the 30 to 40,000 range.”…

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Filed Under: Eurabia, immigration, Islamic State (aka ISIS, ISIL, Daesh) Tagged With: refugees


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Comments

  1. h says

    May 16, 2015 at 10:58 pm

    You don’t have to be Einstein to work out that the migration is ISIS instigated.
    Too bad all the countries in Europe can’t work that out. I feel sorry for the ethnic Europeans who are now trapped and await their fate, which won’t be a pleasant one.
    I said 20 years ago that Islamic migration was sending forth an army into enemy territory.
    Europe, make Muslims your biggest export commodity.

    • Shane says

      May 17, 2015 at 9:35 am

      European governments should state that we will not allow any illegal aliens into our country and we will turn their boats around.

      • EYESOPEN says

        May 18, 2015 at 11:08 pm

        They cannot do that because, thanks to the EU and the UN, these European nations have essentially LOST their sovereignty; and the citizens’ wishes – even demands – are falling on deaf ears.
        /
        This will happen in the U.S. as well unless we tell the UN and its “High Commissioner for Refugees” to take a hike. Unfortunately, the traitor who infests our White House, along with our own State Department, is conducting this invasion against the will of the majority of American citizens. (Check out Ann Corcoran’s RefugeeResettlementWatch if you don’t believe me.) Also, U.S. citizens must loudly protest – and fight against – any new so-called “trade agreements” which will put us in the same position as the Europeans.

  2. Kepha says

    May 16, 2015 at 11:05 pm

    I’m not surprised at this at all. People smuggling is very advantageous to nasty governments and movements. In the years immediately after the Tiananmen massacre, I talked with Chinese refugees from that era who said they hoped to find a way to Taiwan, but because the Communist government was closely watching for dissidents along the southeast coast, they ended up going overland to Thailand. Now, given that at the same time, the Fuzhou-area people smugglers didn’t slack off at all, doesn’t that suggest a certain coziness between the Communists and the criminals? Further, the Viet Communists actually encouraged the boat people exodus as a way to get rid of possible dissidents and, hopefully, see a few of them fall prey to the sea and pirates (as well as keep the ASEAN countries where the boat people washed up off balance).

    Hence, if ISIS is encouraging both its possible dissidents and some of its sympathizers to smuggle themselves into lands they see as targets a few years down the road, it shouldn’t surprise anyone.

    • Godwin says

      May 17, 2015 at 2:42 am

      The latest report from world news says ISIS also smuggle some jihadis among the refugees.

  3. Michael Copeland says

    May 17, 2015 at 2:56 am

    The EU has the agenda of “de-homogenising” the member states, while dishonestly claiming it is for “economic benefit”. Hence the sinister “Core Values” of open borders, free movement, asylum and welfare.
    The EU is complicit in people-trafficking.

  4. PJG says

    May 17, 2015 at 3:36 am

    Will the Left look on the Islamic State even more favourably now, as people sharing their “compassion” for “refugees”?

    • Don McKellar says

      May 17, 2015 at 10:33 am

      That will probably pop up somewhere. The leftist position on Islam is so insane at this point, it’s entirely possible.

  5. Baucent says

    May 17, 2015 at 5:39 am

    This is the important back story that the mainstream media like the BBC ignore. It’s all about the poor migrants and their dreadful journey. Few are fingering the real villains, the people smuggling gangs,who It appears pay a cut to ISIS in parts of Libya and are growing rich on the misery.

    The way to break this industry is for Europe to toughen up, follow the Australian example, the Navy intercepts all boats and returns them to Libya, where the boats are destroyed. Second they land military forces to confiscate and destroy assets the smugglers use. Third the Europeans broadcast widely in Africa that if you arrive in Europe without a visa you will be returned to Africa, unless you can prove refugee status, no right of appeal.

    Those steps would cut the legs out from under the gangs that run this industry. And in Australia’s case not one boat of migrants have arrived in Australian territory this year.

    • Mirren10 says

      May 17, 2015 at 11:08 am

      ”This is the important back story that the mainstream media like the BBC ignore. It’s all about the poor migrants and their dreadful journey.”

      Another thing they ignore is that the vast majority of these ‘refugees’ are young men, teenagers, and boys. Any pictures of these ‘refugees’ show swathes of young **men**; nary a woman or girl to be seen. Or *very* seldom.

      I have never heard *any* of the msm question why this should be so.

      • Westman says

        May 17, 2015 at 12:56 pm

        Mirren,

        I’m guessing there are three reasons: (1.) The inequity of Islam for the women; the men have the money, (2.) Some of the men with families go to establish living quarters and bring their families later, (3.) Muslim men can marry and convert non-muslims in the new land, Muslimas cannot. Again, an inequity designed to increase muslim population vs unbelievers.

        • Westman says

          May 17, 2015 at 8:17 pm

          Something like this?

          https://creepingsharia.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/030113engelsk-web.jpg?w=468&h=364

  6. Angemon says

    May 17, 2015 at 5:58 am

    The best part? EU policies want to force these “migrants” onto European countries. Each country will have a quota and no chance of refusing to take “refugees” in, regardless of what the people think. Because no harm can come from that, right?

  7. Cicero says

    May 17, 2015 at 11:55 am

    The whole REFUGEE/PROGRESSIVE COMPLEX relies on ONE BIG CANARD THAT PASSES BY DEFAULT, WITHOUT EVER BEING DISCUSSED.

    “We cannot send them BACK TO THEIR OWN COUNTRIES.” Refugees and their home countries conspire to create obstacles to repatriation.

    ANSWER: Just pay some third world country (Burkina Faso anyone?) to take in and house refugees REGARDLESS OF ORIGIN. A stipend of, e.g. $3,000 is a lot of money in the third world and should suffice to get refugees settled permanently. The refugee could be paid $50 a month for six months for basic, Third World level subsistence. After that, they are on their own.

    There is a precedent – the UK sent some illegal immigrants with suspected Muslim terrorist links to Albania under a deal with that country.

    • Cicero says

      May 17, 2015 at 4:01 pm

      These countries will never take them.

      There are plenty of countries that are so poor that they will happily take ANY “refugees” for a small amount of money. Again, countries such as Burkina Faso, Mali, and other African countries could easily be bribed to accept felons, refugees, radioactive waste, etc.

      In truth, of course, the EU elite (like the elite in the U.S.) WANT TO IMPORT THESE YOUNG MUSLIM MEN most of whom have no intention of making Europe their “home” in any real sense. So, the narrative must be “framed” accordingly for a sentimentalized, post-Christian populace – give them residence and welfare, “OR WE ALL ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR THEIR DEATHS.”

    • Avenger says

      May 18, 2015 at 12:44 am

      @Cicero
      If the UK is sending some of their most undesirable Muslims to Albania, they’ll just find a way to migrate to Bosnia, Macedonia or Herzegovina and back into the EU.

      I know this will disappoint a lot of readers but I think the UK should be forced to give refuge to these tens of thousands of Muslim boat people. For centuries, the British empire has facilitated the invasion of Muslims into non muslim nations. Knowing that, I think it would be peachy-creamy to see the Brits live side by side with the same scum they have wittingly sprung upon other free people throughout the world. I’d love to see Muslim sheep herders in Scotland, Muslim fisherman and dock workers at major ports, Muslim school teachers and college professors especially in the liberal arts. With more mosques being built the construction sector should thrive. Prince Charles personal body guard should also be Muslim.

  8. pongidae rex says

    May 17, 2015 at 12:21 pm

    In August 1914, Europe followed antiquated mutual defense treaties off a cliff into World War I in which an entire generation was slaughtered. Now it is August 1914 all over again and Europe is following antiquated treaties governing immigration and migrant rights into social chaos and civil war. International borders exist for a reason.

  9. Westman says

    May 17, 2015 at 12:33 pm

    A Warlord religion is so useful to these ISIS thugs who will cause refugees to drown without as much as twinge of conscience. They will simply quote Quran(3:145), “.. Nor can a soul die except by Allah’s leave, the term being fixed as by writing” and say, “it was written”.

  10. fido says

    May 17, 2015 at 5:20 pm

    …and the islamic tumor continues to metastasize….

  11. Alarmed Pig Farmer says

    May 17, 2015 at 6:43 pm

    They’ve got us coming and going. Every Moslem put into EUrabia advances the cause of Demographic Jihad and its eventual endgame of tip-in to Sharia there. At the other end, they get $323 million to fund the slaughter of Christians and other Infidels in the Levant to clean out the riff raff out of the house of the New Caliphate.

    They’re playing a win-win game. On top of all that, they get billions by selling black market crude through the hands of their brothers the Turks up in Asia Minor… who are our NATO “allies” armed with American aircraft and weapons.

  12. Alarmed Pig Farmer says

    May 17, 2015 at 6:46 pm

    In UK Muslims can have 4 wives under Sharia and claim state handouts for all of them and the children.
    – Chris above

    The same thing is happening here, but officially polygamy is a crime and welfare fraud is a felony. So we just pretend that it’s not happening. Willful ignorance layered atop willful ignorance, so to speak.

  13. R Cole says

    May 17, 2015 at 7:32 pm

    We’ll send the Left down to greet the invading Islamic party!!

    This new lot of Islamic immigrants won’t even bother with saying they’re ‘offended’ by things like crosses on sides of buildings ~ they’ll just get on with the business of attacking and killing!!

    ::

    Some of these Islamic migrants – say they wish to come to Europe – because they want “freedom” — once they get here – with mouth full – they’ll want Islamic law.

    To deal with the flow of immigrants – they are going to have to take action – on the Europe side.

    Send the Islamic migrants to Saudi Arabia – their desert could be developed – to facilitate displaced populations fleeing instability in Islamic world – and when they find their Islamic peace – viola ~ these people can all return to their homes. Muslim nations are always arguing about non-interference when dealing with matters to do with the region – then let them deal with this one.

  14. Godwin says

    May 18, 2015 at 12:08 am

    These refugees ( mingled with ISIS fighters ) are the Trojan Horse that driven into Europe to destroy It.

  15. David says

    May 19, 2015 at 1:37 pm

    I don’t know why I’m wasting my time posting this, but the only protection we can have as Americans is to declare a 2 year (at minimum) moratorium on all immigration, until we can decide who (if any) immigrants we should allow into this country. Certainly, any immigrants from the middle east should be barred, unless they can prove they are in imminent danger, (i.. e. Christians). To allow large numbers of Islamic immigrants into this country is national suicide.

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