Maneron Frontline Endless Terrorist Funds 9/11 to September 6, 20 20:16

It has been 9/11 to 20 years since passenger planes plunged into the twin skyscrapers that symbolize New York, killing about 3,000 people, including 24 Japanese.

It was the international terrorist organization Al Qaeda.

Money laundering = money laundering and receiving funds, evading the eyes of the authorities.

It is important to cut off funding sources to prevent tragic terrorism, but huge amounts of fraudulent money are still moving around the world.

Japan will follow in the footsteps of money laundering and its countermeasures, which are by no means unrelated.

(Reporter, Ministry of Economic Affairs, Akihiro Shiraishi / Keiichiro Furuichi)

* September 8 (Wednesday) "Good morning Japan" will be broadcast at 7 o'clock.

Ground zero where time stops

Southern Manhattan, New York.

That day, September 11th will come.

A memorial monument set up at the place where the World Trade Center was.

The names of the deceased people are engraved, and the flowers are laid down.

When I see a Japanese name, I feel that my heart is tightened.

Water is quietly sucked into the huge reflecting pool, and it feels like the passage of time has stopped.

Al Qaeda's funding method

How did the terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden and the international terrorist organization Al Qaeda commit this assault?

Various factors are intricately intertwined, but it is a big factor that we have abundant funds through clever money transfer and money laundering.

A 2004 report by the U.S. Parliament's Independent Investigation Commission stated that al-Qaeda was raising funds from charities such as Saudi Arabia, which had poor external oversight and lack of internal control. ..

He also said that he frequently moved funds through an informal Islamic financial system called "Hawala," which is made up of trust and kinship.

The cost of planning and executing the 9/11 terrorist attacks was $ 400,000 to $ 500,000 (about 43 to 54 million yen in Japanese yen).

Surprisingly, the hijackers entered the United States one year and eight months before the incident, were sent funds to their bank accounts, and were casually accessing the accounts from within the United States. It is.

If this flow of money had been stopped, the 9/11 tragedy could have been prevented.

Present progressive tense

Over the last two decades, countries have stepped up measures to prevent money laundering and terrorist financing.

However, criminal organizations and terrorists are cleverly slipping through surveillance networks and transferring funds.

It's ongoing.

Tallinn, the capital of Estonia, one of the three Baltic states in northern Europe.

Known for its beautiful medieval streets, it was discovered in 2018 that money laundering has been taking place here for many years.

A branch in Tallinn, Danske Bank, Denmark.

Its customers are reported to include Russian President Vladimir Putin's family, Russian intelligence, Azerbaijan and Ukrainian authorities.

The bank announced that it had been involved in money laundering of about 200 billion euros (26 trillion yen) in about nine years until 2015.

Pakistan's money laundering professionals, who have been pointed out to be linked to the international terrorist organization Al Qaeda, are also using the bank's branch, according to Lund, a reporter from the Danish newspaper Bearingske, who continues investigative journalism in the case. It is said that

The depth of the roots is immeasurable, and Western authorities are still investigating the flow of money.

Insufficient measures in Japan

Is Japan unrelated to money laundering and terrorist financing?

That is never the case.

According to the National Police Agency, the number of reports of transactions suspected of money laundering crimes from financial institutions was about 432,200 last year.

The number of Maneron cases cleared was 5,97, which has been on the rise recently.

The increase in the number of arrests is due to the increase in the transaction detection capability of financial institutions and the increase in the number of reports, but the hidden crimes have just surfaced on the surface of the water, and there are still dangers lurking around us. There is no change in being.

FATF (pronounced "Fatov"), an international organization that checks money laundering measures around the world, announced the results of Japan's examination on August 30.

The recommendations of this international organization under the OECD are applied to 205 countries and regions around the world, and are known for their rigor, which can be called the "Tokyo District Public Prosecutor's Office" in the world of maneron countermeasures.

In a word, the content is "insufficient".

Although it is a "priority follow-up country" located in the middle of the three categories, it is a category that requires regular reports on the progress of improvements such as further legislation.

Specifically,

▽ regional banks other than major banks have limited understanding of their own risk of maneron and terrorist financing.

▽ In some industries such as jewelry

dealers,

lawyers, and accountants, these risks and obligations are at a low level. In addition to pointing out that he only has the understanding of,

▽ Financial supervisors including the Financial Services Agency are also harsh, saying, "We are not utilizing a series of effective and deterrent sanctions against financial institutions."

A series of cases targeted by regional banks

Vulnerabilities such as regional banks pointed out by the FATF in the report.

In the past, such cases have occurred.

The stage is a regional bank in western Japan.

One day in 2017, a man visited a bank branch and offered to bring about 10 million yen in cash to a Hong Kong company and send it to a company in Hong Kong.

The bank confirmed the identity and accepted the remittance because there were no suspicious points.

After that, 550 million yen crossed the sea four times, five times in total.

Later, a man calling himself a reporter called the Local Finance Bureau, saying that "a suspicious overseas remittance was made."

Authorities have launched an investigation on the suspicion of remittances to North Korea.

Then, the Hong Kong company to which the remittance was sent turned out to be an insubstantial paper company.

It turns out that the bank did not check the recipient company.

Money laundering was a strong suspicion, but it was not possible to confirm who the money was finally given to.

Recently, in September 2020, there were a series of cases in which deposits and savings were illegally withdrawn from deposits and savings accounts of Japan Post Bank and regional banks through electronic payment services such as "docomo accounts."

Damage was occurring at regional banks that had not introduced "two-factor authentication," which confirms the identity online when linking a docomo account and a bank account.

The amount of damage amounted to about 30 million yen, and the police believe that organized criminal groups are involved, and more than 10 related police headquarters nationwide have set up a joint investigation headquarters.

In January 2021, the Saitama Prefectural Police arrested three suspects of Chinese nationality, and investigations are continuing to clarify the whole picture.

Forefront of regional bank maneron measures

Local banks are now moving to step up measures to cut off suspicious money flows.

We interviewed one of them, the Bank of Yokohama.

Thorough identity verification is required to avoid suspicious remittances.

On top of that, banks are now focusing on "monitoring."

For the first time, he entered the "Financial Crime Countermeasures Office for Maneron, etc." as the media, which is the control tower for countermeasures.

With a total of 50 people, it is necessary to find suspicious transactions from a huge number of transactions, which averages about 800,000 transactions a day.

The bankers were staring at the monitor with stern eyes.

In monitoring, the transaction is first passed through a "pattern detection system".

This prepares dozens of patterns such as "specific country", "more than a certain amount", "frequency", "keywords of recent financial crimes" according to the type of suspicious transaction, and the computer automatically selects the one that corresponds to the pattern. Detect and extract with.

AI = artificial intelligence will further narrow it down.

This is a new feature that was just introduced in January.

AI has been learning the suspicious transactions reported to the authorities every day in the past, and it is possible to find suspicious cases with high accuracy.

According to the bank, the detection rate has tripled compared to before the introduction of AI.

With high accuracy, many suspicious cases have been found, and I feel a response.

On the other hand, the difficult thing is to keep the patterns and keywords that lead to fraud up-to-date.

If this condition deviates, the latest system will be meaningless.

Bank officials say it's not easy to keep up with the rapidly changing world, crime and terrorist situations.

Mr. Mitsuyasu

"There is no end to the measures. Since the business environment, crime situation, and customer situation change, it is very difficult to always make various efforts."

Monitoring of crypto assets is unknown

It is the crypto assets that were once called cryptocurrencies that the authorities of each country are now hurting.

Payment can be made without going through a financial institution, and it is very easy to cross national borders.

There are favorable conditions for money laundering.

An Australian researcher's treatise estimates that 46% of Bitcoin transactions between 2009 and 2017 were fraudulent.

In November 2020, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), a financial regulation division under the U.S. Treasury Department, proposed to reduce the standard by which banks must collect information on the transfer of crypto assets from $ 3,000 to $ 250. rice field.

Also, in July, the division appointed the first digital currency chief advisor and is embarking on strengthening the crackdown.

Need to change consciousness

How can we cut off money laundering and terrorist financing?

In August, the Financial Services Agency, in collaboration with the Finance Bureau, notified 17 financial institutions such as regional banks that they would enter an on-site inspection.

Based on the fact that financial institutions were not sufficiently inspected last year due to the spread of the new coronavirus infection, all financial institutions and crypto asset companies were thoroughly inspected for the status of manelon countermeasures, and countermeasures were taken. The policy is to encourage strengthening.

Mr. Matsuo

"If there are financial institutions that are developing measures against maneron, the difference is widening because there are financial institutions that are behind in responding. Maneron terrorist financing is aimed at places where the posture is weak. Due to the nature of coming, it is necessary to raise the overall level immediately. Also, the problem of maneron terrorism financing is not that the general public is irrelevant, but because Japanese finance is not used, it depends on financial institutions. I would like you to cooperate in efforts to confirm your identity and transactions. "

Chain strength

A taller skyscraper, the One World Trade Center, has been built near the site of the World Trade Center, which collapsed due to terrorism, showing the strong stance of the United States to "do not succumb to terrorism."

However, money laundering measures to prevent terrorism and crime are halfway around the world.

In the words of Scottish philosopher Thomas Reid, "the strength of the chain is determined by the strength of its weakest seams."

It means that if the weak part of the chain breaks, everything will collapse.

Through the interview, I realized that cooperating with money laundering measures is a small but steady step that we can take so that peaceful days will continue as before.

Reporter of the Ministry of Economic Affairs

Akihiro Shiraishi

Joined the

Bureau in 2015 After working in charge of the steel and chemical industries, interviewed the Financial Services Agency and regional banks.

Economy reporter

Furuichi AkiraIchiro

2014. He joined

responsible for the financial industry is currently through the Niigata stations