THE ROLE OF AUTHORITIES AND INTELLIGENCE SERVICES IN THE WAR ON TERRORIST FINANCING
THE ROLE OF AUTHORITIES AND INTELLIGENCE SERVICES IN THE WAR ON TERRORIST FINANCING

Summary/Abstract: The paper aims at describing, from a practitioner`s point of view, the Romanian perspective on de-structuring terrorist organizations` funding, especially in the context of recent modi operandi changes. Reference is made both to terrorist operations which require and benefit from considerable resources (such were the 9/11 attacks, as well as the entire existence and sustenance of DAESH), as well as to others which do not incur significant costs. I also intend to describe Romania`s past experience proving that the fight against terrorism and its financing only by means of the Financial Investigation Units (FIU) could not generate significant results, but that it is a matter of close cooperation with both domestic and foreign entities. In this regard, I therefore intend to expand on the Romanian model of an interagency National System for Preventing and Countering Terrorism (SNPCT).As food for thoughts, I raise the issue of striking the right balance between the complexity and the large number of targets to monitor and the simplicity of their MOs, a trend we see in almost every attack after the infamous Charlie Hebdo shootings. Are the nowadays knives and trucks simpler and more undetectable replicas of the airplanes used in September 2001? And, more important, is the current system for preventing terrorism financing truly efficient, or are we once again reactive and not proactive in countering this phenomenon?

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