by Dave Clark, VP Islamic Finance and Charities, Q Society of Australia
On 10 February this year, Nicola Roxon MP, Attorney General and Jason Clare MP, Minister for Home Affairs and Minister for Justice issued a media release titled "Reports Highlight Risks of Money Laundering and Terrorism Financing" along with three reports produced by the Australian Institute of Criminology.
One of these reports "Money laundering and terrorism financing risks to Australian non-profit organisations" touches on the issue of Islamic charities in Australia and the risk of them funding terror.
Here is a link to this report.
If you haven't time to review the report, then it's worth reflecting on the following comments from the media release:
"The report found that smaller, local, community-based NPOs, especially informal ethnic and faith based charities, often fall outside regulatory scrutiny and could be especially vulnerable to money laundering and terrorism financing."
"This is particularly the case for organisations that regularly use informal methods of funds transfer - such as alternative remittance services."
"The report found that organisations that have overseas offices in less-regulated countries, their structure may make them more vulnerable than their size suggests."
This is, of course, PC talk for "we know that Islamic charities may fund terror".
As for the report, while it's not my intention to analyse its full 60 pages, I would like to point out key sections for readers to review, in particular "Faith-based giving and the targeting of Islamic charities" starting on pg. 10 and "Vulnerabilities in the Australian non-profit sector" starting on pg. 51.
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