The stronger Islamist Jihadist group become, the more funds are needed to support their activities. The stronger Islamist Jihadist become, they are able to extort more influence over criminal gangs. They charge “protection” money from drug traffickers and other gangs, and often employ fraudsters, or even assign members to carry out large scale “theft of highly enriched uranium and other nuclear materials,” as well as commodities and fraud. They use the latest techniques of data mining to steal identities, which they then use to defraud the government, banks and insurance companies.
Health services and Insurance fraud, for example, cost “as much as $300 billion a year is lost to health care fraud alone in the U.S. — more than half of it to organized crime,” according Troy Anderson’s informative article in the L.A. Daily News, on May 13, 2007, about the links between organized crime and terrorists. How much of it goes to fund terrorism is unknown, because most cases are investigated strictly as white-collar crimes. Although the criminals’ country of origin is often noted (Euro-Asians or Russians, Middle Eastern, South American), their religious affiliation is rarely taken into account.
Los Angeles “Sheriff’s Department Lt. John Sullivan, said, “organized crime groups in Los Angeles County are supporting international terrorists.” But the complexity and magnitude of these criminal activities does not occur only in L.A. It is happening all over the country. Recently, an excellent series of articles on the links between organized crime and terrorists, by Troy Anderson, appeared in the L.A. Daily News. It is a real eye opener.
Defrauding the U.S. Government of hundreds of billions of dollars, thus undermining the local economy is just what Osama bin laden ordered on Dec. 27, 2001: “It is very important to concentrate on hitting the U.S. economy through all possible means… Look for the key pillars of the U.S. economy. Strike the key pillars of the enemy again and again, and they will fall as one.”
It is about time law enforcement look more closely at the identities and profiles of the individual members and leaders of “ordinary” (drug dealers, human traffickers, car thieves, etc.) and “white collar” criminal gangs. Jihad is not done by the sword alone, economic and financial jihads are less visible, but more insidious aspects of the jihadist war to defeat the West, and especially the U.S.