TACKLING EXTREME RIGHT-WING TERRORISM FINANCING
253. While ideology is the driver of the ERWT threat, the need to determine how it is being financed, and find effective ways to disrupt these funding mechanisms, is crucial.
254. The Joint Money Laundering Intelligence Taskforce (JMLIT) is based in the National Crime Agency and led by the National Economic Crime Centre. Within the JMLIT, the Terrorist Finance Public-Private Threat Group (TF PPTG) is led by Homeland Security Group and brings together over 25 financial institutions, regulators, payment services, civil society, HMG and law enforcement partners to facilitate the exchange of terrorist finance information.[1]
255. In December 2018, the TFEG published an alert on Domestic Extremism Signs and Symbols, with a focus on Far-Right extremism.[2] This alert—one of the aims of which was to raise awareness of this particular threat—was made available to over 300 financial institutions and issued in conjunction with the Counter Terror Policing (CTP) National Operations Centre (NOC):
Whilst holding extremist views is not a criminal offence in itself, the alert flags up individuals or groups that may adhere to extreme ideologies. Individuals and groups that adhere to or promote these views are assessed to be at increased risk of offending, either in the form of terrorist offences, politically-motivated violence, or hate crimes. The aim is that these indicators will act as a prompt to these financial institutions and help them make a more informed assessment as to whether the Suspicious Activity Reporting[3] threshold has been reached in a particular transaction of activity.[4]
256. However, Tom Keatinge of the Centre for Financial Crime and Security Studies at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) expressed a degree of scepticism regarding this initiative, explaining to the Committee that:
By feeding information to banks, law enforcement in particular—and the government more widely in general—it is arguably outsourcing the tackling of extreme right financing to the private sector, taking advantage of the banking sectors' sensitivity to 'reputational risk' which means they are likely to take action against customers (as provided for in their terms and conditions) at a much lower threshold [than] the government is required to meet in order to proscribe a group or designate an individual as "terrorist".[5]
- ↑ Law enforcement can also request tactical information through JMLIT's vetted Banking and Insurance Sector Operations Groups (BSOG/ISOG). Similarly, Law Enforcement Agencies may make use of The Crime and Courts Act 2013 S.7 legal gateway, allowing organisations to disclose information to the National Crime Agency.
- ↑ Numbers that have particular significance include '88' (representing the eighth letter of the alphabet: 'HH, Heil Hitler) and '1683' (the date of the Battle of Vienna, viewed by the Extreme Right as marking the decline of the Ottoman Empire, and inscribed on the weapons used by Brenton Tarrant in the Christchurch shootings of March 2019).
- ↑ Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) are filed by financial organisations with the UK Financial Intelligence Unit at the National Crime Agency.
- ↑ Written evidence - Home office, 31 January 2020.
- ↑ Written evidence - Tom Keatinge, 'The financing of the Extreme Right Wing', 4 November 2020.
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