Assets of 37 entities, individuals frozen over terror funding

Targeting financial sources of terrorists, India has frozen assets worth €3 lakh belonging to 37 individuals and entities this year on charges of terror funding.

India is among the 37 countries that have applied targeted financial sanctions on terror funding, according to a mid-session review by Financial Action Task Force (FATF) against the backdrop of  increased activities of the Islamic State (IS).

The report ‘Terrorist Financing: FATF Report to G20 Leaders’ released earlier this month showed that Saudi Arabia has frozen the highest amount of €3.13 crore belonging to 2,187 individuals and entities. Russia had the highest number of individuals and entities targeted at 3,887 though the amount was very less at €44,929.

The amount frozen by India is around Rs 2.12 crore, as per records available with FATF till August 2015.The United States froze €2.05 crore belonging to 893 entities. France, which faced one of the brutal attacks in recent years, targeted 79 entities and froze €2.31 lakh.

The report showed that only four countries —  Brazil, Czech Republic, Libya, and Palestine — do not have a standalone offence of terrorist financing. It also noted that terrorist financing offence in majority of the countries applies to financing a terrorist organisation even for a purpose unrelated to committing a terrorist act.

The FATF is an inter-governmental body established in 1989 and it is mandated to set global protocols to combat money laundering and other financial crimes with direct ramifications to terrorist acts across the globe.