US Charge d’Affaires: Trinidad making moves on countering terrorism

(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.