BRISBANE, Australia (AP) — Terrorists and organized crime gangs are working together to fund and conduct illegal activities across Asia and the Pacific, an Australian minister said Tuesday.
Customs Minister Chris Ellison told the fifth annual meeting of the Asia-Pacific Group on Money Laundering that hundreds of millions of dollars were tied up in illicit activities in the region.
“There is no question that terrorism is using organized criminal activity to fund terrorism, and similarly organized criminals are falling into bed with terrorism to further their own illegal activities,” Ellison told the conference. He gave no examples.
Many small island nations in the Pacific have set up offshore banking operations as a way of bolstering their flimsy economies, but they are now being pressured to close down the banks, which international agencies say are widely abused by money launderers.
Australia has set up an agency to fight money laundering in the region.
“Because we are well placed between the Pacific area and Asia we are able to assist those smaller countries, developing countries, with anti-money laundering devices,” Ellison said, without elaborating.
Gary Crooke, Australia’s National Crime Authority chief, said Australia had also adopted a code for fighting money laundering set out by the international Financial Action Task Force.
But he admitted money laundering would never be eradicated.
“Money laundering is as wide as the ingenuity of the criminal mind,” Crooke said.
