(Trinidad Guardian) The United States’ designation of Trinidad & Tobago nationals Emraan Ali and Eddie Aleong as ISIS financiers is the opening of the door to move forward with successful prosecutions at countering terrorism, says US Charge d’Affaires John McIntyre.
“You have an active and engaged Attorney General who’ll move forward probably on designations. You have an active, very intelligent DPP and a new Commissioner of Police who’s working very hard. You have a well resourced Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) – this is the door opening,” McIntyre said
Speaking at the FIU’s offices yesterday, McIntyre was referring to action by the US Department of Treasury which on Wednesday sanctioned Ali, of Rio Claro and Aleong, of Enterprise.
The USDT detailed certain ISIS financing activities of both men – passing money transfers to T&T nationals and ISIS members in Syria – including up to six months ago in Aleong’s case. Aleong was among 15 held by police regarding the plot to disrupt Carnival. The USDT stated Ali had lived at an ISIS guest house in 2015.
McIntyre yesterday presented the FIU with two computer servers which will allow it to begin accepting electronically submitted Suspicious Activity Transaction Reports from institutions and assist efforts to spot such activity.
McIntyre said, “Just this week, the US Treasury Department designated two ISIS financiers, both with a nexus to T&T. We’re incredibly pleased the USDT decided to move forward on this and this is the opening in a lot of ways to move forward.” He said T&T has proven it can disrupt threats, terrorist and criminal and move forward from investigation to prosecution and the servers will help to move forward on this and interrupt movement of drugs. He added terrorist financing is a global issue and this is connected to criminal activities which are causing problems for T&T citizens.
McIntyre said there was a lot of synergy involving yesterday’s handing over of servers to FIU and the USDT designations of Ali and Aleong. He added T&T was the US’s partner of choice.
“The door is open, especially in the fight against terrorism,” McIntyre said.
“As a regional financial hub, we know bad actors will attempt to use the robust financial system here, as well as other means, to try and launder their illicit gains. You at the FIU are on the front lines in detecting this criminal behaviour.”
On whether Ali and Aleong had been on the FIU’s radar, FIU head Susan Francois said they hadn’t been designated by T&T yet. She referred queries to the Attorney General’s Office, which handles designations. Officials there confirmed to the T&T Guardian that the case is “under active management.”
Francois said reporting entities send information to the FIU on people they suspect may be involved in terrorist activities – supporting, or travelling – which the FIU analyses and submits to law enforcement.
“Last year’s annual report shows a significant amount of terrorist reports which we sent to law enforcement. The increase was because reporting entities are now more familiar with terrorism indicators,” she said.
Francois said the servers will greatly assist smoother data mining processes since the FIU had been using a manual environment, including couriers, to obtain SAR reports from financial institutions.