Enforcement agencies have launched a massive exercise to identify and plug the sources that fund the activities of Islamic State (IS) sympathisers. Using the funds, some of the sympathisers have already made it to Syria and Iraq to join the terror outfit.
While hawala has been the preferred route of terror funding, in the case of IS, there are specific instances of formal banking channels being used to fund its sympathisers. The funding is for initial travel requirements, and once they join the IS, they are taken care of there. The sympathisers are also promised monthly allowance if they join the battlefield and a hefty payment to their families if they are killed while fighting.
Hawala routes are extremely difficult to detect and track, and it has been among the key reasons why Indian agencies have over the decades struggled to plug the loopholes that allowed terror groups to receive funding from various sources.
According to sources, the Enforcement Directorate, mandated to conduct investigations into money-laundering, is all set to take up the cases registered in different parts of the country in connection with the activities of the IS. The National Investigation Agency (NIA) and the Delhi Police have also registered such cases.
The agencies have come across specific instances where IS operatives and sympathisers pooled in funds to recruit people. The list includes 18 youths from the newly-formed State of Telangana who during interactions with the sympathisers had expressed their willingness to join the outfit.
One such suspect even received Rs.53,000 from a sympathiser operating through a Facebook profile to arrange passport and tourist visa for Turkey and further travel to Syria. A young girl was also motivated by his brother to take up nursing job in Syria.
Another major case is that of a Kalyan-based group of young men led by Areeb Majeed, who had travelled to Iraq and then to Syria to join the terror outfit. After his deportation, Areeb purportedly told the interrogators that group member Saheem (now said to have been killed) was in touch with Afghanistan national Abdul Rehman Dawlaty and his business partner Adil Dalore.
Dawlaty, Adil and their business partner Atif Inamdar, who has been identified as the organiser of a group named “Islam by Choice”, made all the arrangements for their travel to Syria.
While Adil gave Rs.2 lakh out of Rs.2.4 lakh required for tickets to Baghdad, he also arranged $1,000 for the group to be paid in Baghdad through a Kuwaiti-contact of Dawlaty named Abdulla Hadi Abdul Rehman Alenezi. They were in touch with him over WhatsApp.
Hoodwinking their families, the four young men flew out to Baghdad in May last year on the pretext of pilgrimage.
The agencies identified another person, Haja Fakkrudeen, who was promised monetary benefits to his family. A Singapore national, Fakkrudeen is originally from Cuddalore district in Tamil Nadu.
In January 2014, he travelled to Turkey along with his wife and three children to join the outfit and is currently said to be somewhere along Syria-Turkey border. Recruits like him were allegedly told that close family members of jihadis would receive a monthly salary of Rs.20,000, and Rs.20 lakh in the event of their death.
The ED has already taken up about half-a-dozen cases of terror funding in Jammu and Kashmir and the North-East States. Last year, on the basis of an NIA case, the agency registered a money-laundering case against 10 people, including Pakistan-based Hizbul Mujahideen chief Syed Salahuddin.
The Directorate registered another terror funding case in Kashmir, in which funds to the tune of Rs.3 crore were wire-transferred from Italy between 2007 and 2010.
