Various governments including the United States are taking great pains to follow money trails that lead to terrorist groups in an effort to understand who they are connected too and who is feeding their operations. The monitoring is broad based and not limited to foreign nations but also on large corporations and conglomerates whose operations might purposefully or mistakenly make payments that end up in the hands of our enemies. Back in 2007, Chiquita Brands International plead guilty to engaging in transactions with a specially designated global terrorist in Columbia. The company paid a $25 million fine. The difficulty is that companies cannot always tell who they are dealing with and whether their connections might be affiliated with terrorists. The law is clear however, that individuals and companies are prohibited from conducting transactions with terrorist organizations, states or individuals and have an obligation to check and see whether such connections exist. Banks are making efforts to determine whether funds are flowing to organizations designated as terrorists but frequently they use intermediaries.
Jeffrey Newman represents whistleblowers.
