Bhubaneswar,26d12-With multiple bank accounts, is suspected al-Qaeda terror operative Abdur Rehman alias ‘Katki’ involved in a type of money-laundering to finance terror offensives in India?
The type of financing of Al-Qaeda offensives elsewhere, including the heinous and audacious 9/11 attack in US, and the pattern of bank transactions by Rehman alludes to such a possibility, observed a senior NIA official here.
Though post the new Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), any suspicious bank transaction would need to be informed mandatorily to the Finance Intelligence Unit - IND (FIU-IND) by the banks and non-compliance would draw penalty, terrorist organisations like al-Qaeda duck the banking system here by transacting lesser amounts, unlike the real money laundering cases where huge sums were transacted, almost consistent to the client’s profile, he remarked.
However, the NIA official added that in terror-financing type money laundering, the frequency of transactions matter, not the volumes transacted. But a senior RBI Research Officer here remarked that since banks here have no intelligence inputs on profile of the AQIS operative, it’s not that easy for a bank to identify such frequent suspicious transactions on its own. In Rehman’s case here, the bank transactions were quite frequent this year, as reported by Police Commissioner RP Sharma but he further observed that it needs more investigation.
Significantly, Delhi Police special cell has charged the AQIS of planning to carry out terror offensives during this Christmas and New Year and growing active bank transactions could lend credence to the plot, sources remarked.
Moreover, the special cell, apart from comprehensively delving deeper into their physical network in India, is also probing the fund transfer by AQIS to finance terror operations in India. The angle of investigation would be to identify the sources of finance to AQIS, sources said. Authorities would check out AQIS links with any NGOs in Jammu and Kashmir, UP, Jharkhand, Bangalore and Odisha, sources added. As Al-Qaeda has links with LeT, and since LeT is quite active in J&K, Rehman’s frequent J&K visit would be probed, sources revealed.
Moreover, a probe is also underway to find out whether his trust is working as a front organisation to scout legitimate local funds for AQIS terror offensives in the country.
Meanwhile, sources in Jharkhand police added that they would also investigate whether Rehman was involved in mobilising fund from Jharkhand, and if any money was transferred to any of the families who sent their children to his madarsa. Special cell of Delhi Police would also be looking into his bank transactions to locate out any hawala money being transferred from elsewhere in India to Rehman or any other AQIS operative’s account.
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