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At the recent conference Combating Cybercrime in Betting and Gaming 2010, a number of interesting topics were covered. Of particular interest to the author of this blog was the coverage of terrorist utilization of the internet for fundraising and money laundering. In an example of cyberterrorism, online gambling sites were used by three men, who were also accused of inciting terror, to launder millions of dollars that had been stolen through online check fraud and identity theft schemes. Apparently the men had used multiple accounts to move money through the online gambling sites to conceal the identity of the money. Allegedly, they continued these operations while in jail! According to a reporter from The Register, at least 23 investigations are ongoing into the use of online gambling sites to finance terrorism.
For those interested in learning more about these issues and others surrounding online terrorist financing, I am publishing as part of this blog entry a paper I authored on the subject, Internet Financial Crimes: Practical Solutions for a Growing Problem.
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3 comments:
If gambling was legal through out the US then this source of terrorist finance would dry up.
I enjoyed your paper on Internet Financial Crimes. Thanks for illuminating the problems faced by those who would protect the benefits of an unfettered Internet while limiting abuse by fraudsters. Let's wish the good guys the smarts and resources the job requires.
Glad you enjoyed my paper anon, and I hope the good guys win too, but it definitely is, and will continue to be, a tough fight. There are numerous legitimate interests that conflict, and finding the balance can at times be very difficult.
And Blake, thanks for your contribution as well, but sadly I don't think its that simple. Even if online gambling were completely legal, the bad guys would still use gambling as a means of laundering their ill-gotten gains. Efforts to curb terrorist finance seem to me to be an exercise in making the bad guys' lives more difficult. Completely stamping out the activity may be next to impossible, but finding ways to make the undesired activity more and more inconvenient and expensive certainly helps.
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