Terror Inc.

A much larger income stream of about $750 million comes from abroad, making it the primary funding source for its arms and fuel.

Demolishing the structures in Gaza City that Hamas uses to conduct its terror campaign will be half the job done for Israel, as disabling the financial capability of the terrorists would be an equal challenge.

Hamas has proven, since its founding in 1987, that terrorism can be big business.

Since 7 October, when it launched the terror attack on Israel, killing 1,200 individuals of different nationalities, Hamas’s cash tills have been ringing louder.

An international publication described bankers who run the finances of Hamas as working in Istanbul, eating lobster, and gazing at the Bosporus.

With billions of dollars that the terror organization raises every year from investments that mainly use laundered money and direct infusions from sympathetic organizations and governments, Hamas leaders live the lives of the rich and famous.

According to a New York Post report, Hamas leaders live billionaire lifestyles while luring Palestinians who languish in poverty to be their terrorist pawns.

The Post estimates that the terror group’s three top leaders alone have a net worth of $11 billion and enjoy lives of luxury in the sanctuary of the emirate of Qatar.

The emirate has long welcomed the leaders of the terror group and installed them in its luxury hotels and villas at the same time that it hosts a vast American military presence.

From their glitzy offices, Hamas’ leadership orchestrates a financial empire that spans rich Arabian and Islamic states.

Israel’s declared goal of ending Hamas has the trickier aspect of dismantling its financial base since these are found in the biggest centers of business in friendly countries.

Terror money is being managed by networks complete with a mix of money launderers, mining companies, and arms dealers.

US and Israel intelligence estimate Hamas’ fortune as growing by $1 billion a year from businesses with elaborate covers to avoid Western sanctions.

As administrator of the Gaza Strip, Hamas collects around $360 million yearly in customs duties on goods brought into Gaza from the West Bank or Egypt.

A much larger income stream of about $750 million comes from abroad, making it the primary funding source for its arms and fuel.

Some of the easy money comes from friendly governments, the biggest of which is Iran.

US intelligence reckons that the ayatollahs, or Islamic religious leaders, provide $100 million to Palestinian Islamist groups, mainly in military aid.

The difficult task of evading American sanctions is ingeniously done by coursing terror funds through cryptocurrencies.

Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering operatives are now looking into how much of the crypto market’s activity involves terror groups such as Hamas.

The US treasury department says Hamas has smuggled more than $20 million through Redin, a currency exchange deep in Istanbul’s run-down Fatih neighborhood.

At least $500 million a year, according to Israeli officials, comes from legitimate investments using laundered money, some of which are in firms registered in countries across the Middle East.

A report in The Economist indicated that professionals run these from Hamas’ investment office and employ its members.

The laundering machinery involves the terror money-funded firms making donations to charities, which funnel the funds to Hamas.

One of the companies suspected to be funded by Hamas built skyscrapers in Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates.

Hamas’ politicians now favor Doha, the capital of Qatar, as a base for the terror empire, and its companies range from Algeria and Sudan to the UAE, while its financiers and bankers live in Istanbul.

Terrorists in striped suits and neckties are a bigger threat than their foot soldiers, and both must be obliterated to assure peace.

*****
Credit belongs to: tribune.net.ph