Financial institutions should be mindful of any number of strategies that retreating Islamic State fighters may employ to move their funds into and through the formal banking system as the terrorist group continues yielding ground in Iraq and Syria, say analysts.
A pair of U.S. lawmakers will soon push for the counterterrorism panel they lead to be reauthorized for another six months to consider whether additional legislation is required to choke off funds to Islamic State and other blacklisted groups.
If there is a single lesson to be learned from the terror attacks that killed more than 30 people in Brussels Tuesday it is the importance of information sharing.
Among the many challenges of identifying terrorist funds is the fact that they can be hidden in plain sight, according to Colin P. Clarke, an associate political scientist at the RAND Corporation who studies the subject.
U.S. financial institutions have identified funds potentially linked to last week's terrorist attacks in Paris, according to a top counterterrorism investigator with the FBI.
U.S. officials on Tuesday levied asset freezes and travel bans against 30 individuals and entities for joining the Islamic State or otherwise aiding the group's military operations and territorial expansion.
Turkey's vulnerability to illicit financiers has grown over the past year, in part due to its deepening economic relationship with Iran and turmoil along its southern border, say policy advocates.
U.S. efforts to disrupt Islamic State funding will focus on blacklisting its leadership, penalizing entities that help the group reap illegal profits and identifying co-opted bankers in Iraq and Syria.
Federal regulators and law enforcement agencies are using Bank Secrecy Act data to identify financial transactions tied to Islamic State, the Sunni terrorist group operating in Syria and Iraq.
Banks will find it difficult to identify the proceeds of illicit crude oil sales linked to Islamic State, the blacklisted terrorist organization now controlling a handful of Iraqi and Syrian oil fields.