In anticipation of GSX, we sat down with presenters of upcoming sessions in order to get a better understanding of the topics at hand. This week we are featuring, “The Business Model of Terrorism,” presented by Jessica Davis, President at Insight Threat Intelligence, Kristen Spaeth, Global Intelligence Manager at Coinbase, Matt Edwards, Principal of Peace, Security and Governance at GIST Research Ltd., and Tracey Durner, Chief of Programs at Global Center on Cooperative Security. Read on for what Jessica, Kristen, and Tracey had to say and don’t forget to register for GSX 2024!
Q: How did you become interested in your topic?
TD: Early in my career, I focused on the rehabilitation and reintegration of former child soldiers abducted by the Lord’s Resistance Army, a terrorist group then active in northern Uganda. In that time, I witnessed how central finances are to sustaining and perpetuating violence. It is not just the money used to launch attacks, it’s the funds and assets that enable a group to persist, adapt, expand, and survive that makes it truly difficult to dismantle terrorist organizations only through military responses. Like any organization, terrorist groups have salaries to pay, infrastructure to maintain, and investment and expenditure decisions to make. This means they have a financial strategy. On the other side of the coin, economic factors have proven to be an influential part of an individual’s decision to join a terrorist group – things like income instability or lack of economic opportunity. This means to that prevent terrorism, we also need to be ensuring broad access to financial services and protecting economic and human rights of individuals, especially women and marginalized communities. It was the multi-faceted role of money in terrorism and conflict that intrigued me, and led me to the Global Center on Cooperative Security where for the last ten years I have been supporting public and private sector practitioners to analyze financial networks, investigate and prosecute terrorism financing offenses, and implement risk-based countering the financing of terrorism (CFT) measures that protect financial access and civic space.
Q: What advice would you give security professionals interested in this topic?
KS: In the last 20 years, there has been a significant expansion of national and international CFT policies and steady, though inconsistent, progression in their implementation. What this means is that the private sector, and particularly the financial sector, has been asked to collect and report a wealth of information that can support intelligence and law enforcement actors in understanding terrorism and criminal networks. My advice would be: work with us. Public-private partnerships can be an important component of security and risk management. Work with the private sector, not only to gather information in accordance with domestic law, but also feed information back to us on how you are seeing changes in the threat and risk landscape. That helps us understand the bigger picture, and therefore hone red flag indicators and our own analysis practices so that we provide current and higher quality information back to you.
Q: Tell us about your presentation and why security professionals should have this topic on their radar.
TD: Many risk management and security professionals focus on the operational risks associated with terrorism – namely the threat of an attack or instability resulting from terrorist activity. The risks that stem from terrorism financing are more complicated, including operational as well as financial, reputational, compliance, and strategic risks. In my experience, this is an underexamined element in security and risk management frameworks. I see a silo between terrorism, terrorism financing, and other types of security professionals that is a disservice to comprehensive risk management. Our hope in this presentation is to build some of those bridges. From our side, we can help unpack the complexities of terrorism financing today, highlight what we see as critical risk areas, and engage in a dialogue with the audience to better understand the threat and security landscape from a multi-faceted perspective.
Q: How do you see this issue evolving in the next 2-5 years?
JD: There are serious questions about whether our current polices and approaches to terrorism financing have been effective, and little available data to answer the question. In some places, weak implementation of existing counter terrorism financing frameworks allow terrorist actors to access the global financial system at little risk. Even in places with higher capacity, terrorist organizations are adept at changing and diversifying tactics to avoid detection or conceal activities. The use of sanctions as a prevention and disruption tool is on the rise recently, but similar questions persist about their efficacy – especially in light of the challenges they present for humanitarian aid and peacebuilding efforts. In coming years, I see opportunities to improve our detection and disruption efforts through new financial and regulatory technologies, including use of blockchain to improve transparency and artificial intelligence to analyze data points and patterns. However, it is important that security actors do not lose focus on disrupting the “tried and true” methods, as the current typologies are likely to remain a core element of the financial strategy for many terrorist groups.
Q: Why do you attend GSX?
All: For most of us, this will be our first time attending the GSX. We are excited about the opportunity to build bridges between the terrorism financing and security management communities of practice. We deploy many of the same approaches, in terms of data collection, analysis, and risk assessment, mitigation, and management. We are excited to share our views on the terrorism financing threat landscape, and to draw linkages with colleagues that approach intersectional security issues from other vantage points.