The terrorist attacks in New York City and Washington, D.C. were orchestrated with horrifying precision. It must have taken the terrorists years of planning to synchronize the suicide air assaults on September 11 and also required substantial sums of money to bankroll the unprecedented sabotage on America.
As federal law enforcement agencies and their international counterparts work to piece together the clues that will trace the terrorists’ footsteps back through time, one key search is focusing on their financial backing. How did the hijackers and their accomplices finance the planning, training, equipment and cash necessary to perpetrate the deadliest crimes ever committed on American soil?
The president has pledged to root out terrorism from all corners of the world. And it’s become clear the rules of engagement will not rely solely on military action. It will require constant, sustained surveillance that includes interaction and cooperation from both the public and private sectors and our allies abroad. From beefing up the shoe leather with U.S. intelligence outreach to providing the necessary anti-terrorism tools for federal law enforcement authorities, the United States is committed to staging a full court press against terrorism to protect our national security and defend American citizens.
Covert funding plays a central element among terrorist regimes. A complex financing system allows them to build up their operations, train recruits, plot acts of terror and spread fear and evil around the globe. The U.S. must figure out a way to choke off these illicit sources of funding once and for all. On September 24, the president issued an executive order that effectively freezes accounts and financial transactions suspected to have any links with alleged terrorist organizations.
Beyond better enforcement, U.S. laws also need to be strengthened to include better reporting, record-keeping, transparency and information-sharing between banks and federal authorities when it comes to a money laundering concern involving a foreign customer or financial institution. The financial information of U.S. bank customers already is subject to laws regulating suspicious activity. This framework needs to apply to foreign customers as well.
International terrorists have developed sophisticated ways to funnel money through the U.S. banking system to support their efforts right here in the United States. Money launderers know how to game the system, including setting up phony charitable organizations and sham financial institutions overseas. By putting more teeth into U.S. statutory and regulatory authority, we can begin to cut through such schemes and starve the sources of funding that feed terrorist organizations and allow them to operate virtually anywhere in the world.
For the past several years, I have worked on legislation aimed at clamping down on money laundering tactics used by international drug traffickers that allows them to funnel their ill-gotten gains through the U.S. banking system. My bipartisan anti-money laundering legislation also would help shut off the spigot that is allowing tainted money to flow through the U.S. banking system and finance terrorist activity in this country. We need better protections in the entire financial services industry to safeguard against money laundering.
In the aftermath of these terribly unfortunate circumstances, I hope to see our long-sought efforts to strengthen and improve the U.S. response to money laundering get enacted. Remember there’s more than one way to skin a cat. And cutting off the financial mechanisms by which terrorists finance their evil schemes is one way to dry up their operations.