Joining Forces to Counter Terrorism Financing in the Context of Evolving Threats and Emerging Technologies (Counter-Terrorism Week Side Event)

Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, distinguished participants.
I have the pleasure welcoming you at this afternoon's side event that is dedicated to countering terrorism financing in the context of evolving threats and emerging technologies, where we will try to really underscore how we can do this together.
That's why the first two words of the name of the signed event are joining forces.
Um, so let's please try to do that during the event as well so that we can collect different stakeholders points of view, different perspectives, but also different views on what remains to be done.
I will first give the floor to the heads of entities who are the five co organizers of today's event and we will start with Ambassador Olivier Caron, special envoy for counterterrorism and Organized Crime from the French Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs.
Thank you very much.
Well, to begin just a few words to say how pleased I am to be able to be here with a partner for the opening of this event.
And I would like to warmly thank India.
Seated.
The UNOCT and also the GIFCT for their commitment to organizing this joint event.
Well, for France, the fight against the financing of terrorism is a priority.
Indeed, if we want to be effective in our efforts to deprive terrorist groups of their means, this struggle must be collective and must galvanize the entire international community as a whole, and that is why France began in 2018, the no money for Terror Conferences and brought resolution 24 62 to the Security Council, which with the Paris agenda and provided a binding legal framework which required that states to prevent and suppress the financing of terrorism.
And uh enshrined the central role played by the FAATF when it comes to fighting against the financing of terrorism.
It's crucial to continue this effort in order to isolate and to weaken the terrorists by drying up their sources of financing.
Indeed, Al Qaeda, Daesh, and their affiliates have shown in recent years to have a great capacity to adapt to changes.
And as the latest report of the FATF points out in the subject, which France, along with the CTAD had actively contributed, the terrorist groups increasingly use digital and financial technologies such as social media, virtual asset exchange platforms, cryptocurrency, or messaging services to diversify their sources of financing and don't hesitate to use these promising technologies against us and exploit the anonymity that characterizes those technologies.
At the same time, the growing decentralization of terrorist groups strengthens the role of financial rotating hubs or regional hubs, as well as self financed cells, which increases their resilience.
Given these changes, our collective response must be commensurate with the challenges, and that is why France welcomed on the 19th of May the fifth, no money for error Conference.
It brought together more than 70 states and international organizations.
The conference made it possible to look at the progress accomplished since the adoption of the Paris agenda at the first conference in 2018, as well as the challenges that remain ahead of us.
The exchanges that we had highlighted three areas that we have to target in particular.
First of all, the ability of terrorist groups to finance themselves by exploiting their territorial control.
Secondly, the opportunities that they find in, uh, working with transnational organized crime and lastly, the misuse of financial innovations and the fight against regulatory havens.
This conference made it possible to reaffirm our collective ambition to strengthen our cooperation with the private sector and the regulatory authorities in order to fight against the financing of terrorism in a proportionate and relevant way.
Only resolute and coordinated action from the entire international community will make it possible to deprive a terrorist organizations of the resources that fuel their violence.
Therefore, I would like to express my gratitude for the opportunity that we have today to continue our discussions to operationalize these commitments which were taken on 19th of May and to guarantee that these innovations would be beneficial for everyone's development.
Thank you very much, Your Excellency.
I'm pleased to give the floor to our second co organizer, Ambassador Parvatani Harish.
If I did not mispronounce your name, apologies if I did, Excellency, you have the floor.
Thank you, moderator, Ambassador Olivia, Excellencies, dear colleagues, all protocols observed.
I must at the outset say it's always a pleasure to speak at events where real issues are discussed and real problems are poundered upon.
I thank my co host for bringing this very large group together.
I'm told more than 500 people have registered to join this event online.
This shows the immense interest in this topic.
I do not want to speak on this matter in the abstract.
For decades now, my country, India, has confronted cross border terrorism and new digital technologies are only making the sources, the methods, and channels used for the flow of assets more complex.
Four years ago, India, as a chair of the Security Council's counterterrorism Committee, convened the committee in Mumbai and New Delhi and the result was the Delhi Declaration.
We chose then to focus the committee's attention on two frontiers, virtual assets and online platforms.
That choice was indeed prescient as the world has changed completely in the last half decade or so.
Today, we cannot imagine our lives, dear friends without ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini, just like the smartphone became an essential for everyday life a decade or so ago.
In this environment, terrorists with nefarious agendas are always trying to hoodwink city agencies and virtual asset exchanges, stable coins, crowdfunding platforms, and prepaid instruments.
These all have become central to the funding infrastructure of global terrorist operations.
Crowdfunding from radicalized individuals for terrorist financing and use of tokens, stars and points and social media platforms by terrorists to store and transfer the value are real issues of deep concern for all of us.
I'd like to draw three lessons from India's own experience that are relevant to this meeting.
First, terrorists are technology neutral.
They adopt whatever is cheap, fast, and lightly regulated, and whatever works for them.
Our response must be a risk based architecture anchored in the FATF standards.
Second, our history shows that critical terrorist financing risks have not emerged anonymously.
They have been sponsored, including by some state actors.
Third, regulation must not punish the legitimate.
Steps towards financial inclusion, humanitarian action, and responsible innovation are only undermined when illicit flows go unchecked.
Therefore, the regulatory outcome should be proportional, not prohibitive.
India has made an honest effort to practice what it advocates.
We have brought virtual asset service providers within our anti money laundering framework.
We have tightened verification requirement for centralized exchanges and users, and we have contributed case studies to the FATFs updates and best practices to mitigate terror financing risks.
The FATF remains an indispensable pillar of the global counterterrorism financing and anti money laundering architecture.
Its work is technical, evidence based, and rooted in internationally accepted standards.
Attempts to question its credibility often reflect fear of scrutiny rather than genuine process related concerns.
Countries facing adverse assessments should address the deficiencies identified, strengthen domestic enforcement, improve financial transparency, and demonstrate irreversible action against terror financing networks.
The answer to FATF scrutiny is not politicized activism in UN forums, but credible compliance.
States that allow their territory, institutions, or financial channels to be misused for terrorism must stop exporting instability and start fulfilling their obligations towards international peace and security.
Before I close, I reaffirm India's firm commitment to the noble cause of City financing.
As a head of UNSC CTC, India developed the non binding guiding principles pursuant to the Delhi Declaration.
It's a matter of great satisfaction that its pillars are being taken forward and the world is gaining from it.
With political will, they will be implemented.
India remains a committed partner in this work.
I wish you all a very productive deliberations today and thank you very much for your presence.
Thank you, Your Excellency.
We will move on with our list of opening remarks and it's my particular pleasure to give the floor to Assistant Secretary-General Natalia German, Executive Director of CTAD.
Please.
Excellency distinguished colleagues, I would like to warmly welcome all our participants and sincerely thank our dear partners, France and India, as well as our partners at No CT and GIF CT for co organizing this important event.
I'm also very pleased to welcome the president of the Financial Action Task Force, Fatugh and all our distinguished panelists.
Throughout our joint work in recent years, we have concluded that financial channels used by terrorists and their supporters increasingly take place online and are facilitated by modern communication technologies.
This increase in the abuse of technologies for terrorist financing goes along with the uptake in their use in the society overall as these technologies develop and terrorists adapt to their exploitation with most of their vulnerable features.
This is particularly relevant in the context of the increasing use of virtual assets, which can offer more privacy and anonymity.
Experts also caution about the gaming industry as constantly evolving with the development and introduction of new technologies.
With respect to artificial intelligence, we have marked the sophistication of document forgery, including when opening accounts, using money transfer services, or transacting in virtual assets.
Convergence with other types of criminal activities that terrorists benefit from adds yet another level of complexity in detecting and suppressing terrorist financing.
These recent trends highlighted in several recent reports of CET and the Financial Action Task Force, including its 2025 comprehensive update on terrorism financing, co led by CET and the French Treasury underscore the need to continue enhancing the understanding of the terrorist financing risks associated with new and emerging financial technologies and fundraising methods.
As the first and critical step for developing appropriate responses.
Without this risk and evidence based understanding, mitigation efforts are mismatched to the increasingly sophisticated tactics of terrorists.
The importance of a comprehensive and risk based approach to CFT is also explicitly highlighted in the non binding guiding principles on preventing, detecting, and disrupting the use of new and emerging financial technologies for terrorist purposes adopted by the Security Council Counter Terroriist Committee in 2025 in accordance with the Daily Declaration on countering the use of new and emerging technologies for terrorist purposes in a manner consistent with international law.
CTAT works closely with its United Nations and other international and regional partners, including the FATF global network, on promoting and supporting the implementation of these guiding principles and on strengthening states responses to evolving terrorism financing threats.
CTAT's next assessment of gaps encountering the financing of terrorism prepared annually pursuant to the Security Council Resolution 24 62, will focus specifically on areas where states struggle to address new types of terrorism financing threats.
Today's discussion is an excellent opportunity to direct our collective efforts to address the most urgent gaps and challenges in the implementation of existing frameworks and policy guidance to counter the financing of terrorism while ensuring full respect for human rights and encourage beneficial innovation and financial activity.
Let us take a strategic and forward looking approach in this regard and make sure that our joint efforts are complementary, targeted, and fit for purpose.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Assistant Secretary-General Natalie German.
Our next speaker in the opening remarks is Mr.
Mauro Midio, Director of the UN Coterrorism Center of the UN Office of Counterterrorism.
Thank you, Desbth Lana.
Excellencies, distinguished delegates, ladies and gentlemen.
It's really a pleasure to join you all for this high level side event on joining forces to counter terrorism financing in the context of evolving threats and emerging technologies.
I would like to begin by expressing our sincere appreciation to our co hosts, the Permanent Mission of France and India, to the counterterrorism Executive Directorate and to the Global Internet Forum to Counterterrorism for convening this timely discussion together with the Office of Counterterrorism.
The issue before us sits at the intersection of two major shifts, the continuing adaptation of terrorist financing methods on one side and the rapid mainstreaming of digital technologies in everyday life.
Recent UN and FATF reports have made clear that terrorist financing is increasingly hybrid, combining conventional methods with digital platforms and services such as social media, mobile payments, and gaming environment.
These tools support innovation, connectivity, commerce, and financial inclusion.
The objective is certainly not to secritarize technology.
But rather to prevent misuse while preserving financial sector innovation.
To do this, we see four main priorities.
First, member states will need risk based operational and dynamic responses.
Risk assessments and supervision must capture online fundraising, platform based financial activity, encrypted communications, and criminal links.
Secondly, operational capacity must keep pace.
Authorities need to trace digital funds, preserve evidence, engage service providers across jurisdictions, and turn financial intelligence into admissible evidence.
Thirdly, cooperation must be genuinely multi stakeholders as no single authority, institution or sector can see the full picture alone.
We have a strong foundation.
Security Council Resolution 24 62, the UN Global counterterrorism Strategy, the Delhi Declaration, the CTC guiding principles on new and emerging financial technologies, and of course, the FTA recommendations.
The fifth no money for Terrorist Ministerial Conference hosted by France reaffirmed collective commitment.
Seed supported guiding principles, building on the Delhi Declaration under India's chairmanship provide practical direction while the global Internet Forum brings essential insight into terrorist financial activity online.
For UNICT and the UN Counterterrorism Center, this agenda is central.
Through our global program on countering the financing of terrorism, we work with CETA, with Fatah and other partners to help requesting states close gaps, strengthen risk understanding, improve coordination, and build operational capacity.
Fourth, balance must remain central.
Countering the financing of terrorism measures must be targeted, proportionate, context sensitive, and consistent with international human rights, humanitarian and refugee law.
Overly broad measures may undermine financial inclusion, restrict legitimate civic and humanitarian activity, or push flows into less visible channels.
Today's discussion focuses on practical priorities, updding risk understanding, closing capacity gaps, improving cooperation with digital and financial sectors, and ensuring that innovation, financial inclusion, and security reinforce one another.
We look forward to a sustaining and forward looking exchange and thank you very much.
Thank you, Mauro.
Last but not least, in this opening segment, I have the pleasure to give the floor to miss Noreen Fink, Executive Director of the Global Internet Forum to Counterterrorism.
So, that's counter terrorism.
It's long enough, yes.
Thank you.
Distinguished colleagues, it's a real pleasure to welcome you on behalf of the Global Internet Forum to Counterterrorism alongside our partners from France, India, CTAD, and UN OCT.
I'm especially honored to be here having led the negotiations for the UK on 24 62, and it's really wonderful to see this conversation continuing here today at this high level side event.
For those of you who don't yet know us, you will soon, but just in case you don't yet know us, GIF CT is a unique tech led nonprofit organization that brings together 41 diverse tech company members while also working with civil society, governments, and academics.
Our mission is to prevent terrorists and violent extremists from exploiting digital platforms.
How do we do this? We work through four key tools.
We have a platform for fostering information sharing and collaboration among our members, being a UN for tech member companies, if you will, a hash sharing database for terrorist content, which provides essential tech solutions for companies in trying to identify an action violate of content, an incident response framework, which helps us work with the online manifestations of offline terrorist attacks, and an academic research and analysis arm based at King's College, London, which also now includes the extremism and Gaming Research Network.
So part of our mission at GIFCT is to ensure that our members and our global stakeholders can adapt to evolving threats, identify risks, and implement effective solutions.
Through our multi stakeholder working groups, initiatives, and convenings, we seek to strengthen collective understanding of evolving financial methods, including the use of crowdfunding platforms, digital payment systems, virtual assets, and other mechanisms that may be exploited by terrorists and violent extremist actors.
This year, GIF CT is convening a working group on countering the financing of terrorism online, bringing together a cross sector cohort of international experts to consider emerging threats, risks and dynamics in terrorist financial activity online.
The group will map gaps in traditional counterterrorism strategies when applied to the online threat landscape and actors and looking at various financial touchpoints, platforms, and payment types.
We look forward to sharing the outcomes of some of the working groups early observations with you and my colleague doctor El Karhili will speak more about that in her intervention.
We've also been pleased to strengthen our engagement with FATF, with the 12 67 monitoring team, the ombudsperson's office, and several experts in the UN represented here today.
We know, and this is working with industry and our multi stakeholder community, that no single state or sector or company can alone identify and address these threats.
Our adversaries are quick to learn and adapt and it is essential that we marshal the collective capacity of public private partnerships to ensure our responses are both timely and adaptable because the threat is changing faster than many of us can address in the course of these policy processes.
But it is also key to ensuring that these processes are done with human rights and the protection of privacy and human rights and civil liberties front and center.
It remains a core part of our membership criteria at GIF CT and continues to be a key commitment from all our member companies.
This is also why we have been expanding GIF CTs membership to include platforms at the intersection of monetization and finance, recognizing that the terrorist financing threat has moved well beyond traditional social media into everyday tools that people are using to pay, to donate, and to transact everyday business online.
We invite all of you to be in touch with us if there are companies in your countries and your regions that you think will benefit from GIF CT membership and engagement, and I invite you to approach me or my colleagues here afterwards with any recommendations.
Today's discussion is an important opportunity to deepen our collective approaches.
We look forward to hearing from our partners, exchanging perspectives, identifying areas where we can continue to follow up and work together and strengthen the global response to countering terrorist financing in a digital age.
Thank you.
Thank you very much, Noreen and also thank you for your very practical proposal and call for getting in contact and getting the companies on the platform.
We are now done with our high level opening remarks segment and it's my particular pleasure to announce the following segment, which is keynote remarks.
And we have the pleasure here of welcoming miss Elisa DA Marazzo, the President of Financial Action Task Force, who has just completed her sixth and final plenary week in Paris and is here with us to continue to support our joint efforts.
It will be unthinkable to have this joint event without the FATF.
Elisa, you have the floor, please.
That's okay.
Thank you very much, Alana.
That's very kind.
I want to start by highlighting and thanking both the permanent representatives, and Ambassador Caron and Ambassador Harish for highlighting the central role of the FATF in combating terrorism, as well as the other co organizers.
I think these really speak to the ecosystem that we have and how we work with each other to make sure that we make the best of our synergies and our expertise.
It's a pleasure to be here today.
For those of you that were in the panel before, I mentioned that the FATF, together with the global network that comprises over 200 jurisdictions, help the countries fight terrorism and in particular, terrorist financing in the benefit of our populations.
We do this in two ways.
We assess all of the countries through the global network and that way we can identify the strengths, but also the shortcomings of the systems to combat and prevent terrorist financing, and that gives a roadmap of the jurisdictions so that they can strengthen their regimes.
This includes, and it's important to signal it here, the implementation of the target financial sanctions by the UN Security Council.
I mentioned before that we work with strong synergies and part of that is shown in the reports that we recently published.
One of them last week, that is in particular in relation to tourist financing through social media and messaging applications, and one very comprehensive update on tourist financing that we published in 2025, which by the way, is the first report that is global and comprehensive on tourist financing in over a decade with heavy support and leadership of CTT, in particular, it Lana and Natalie.
Thank you for that work.
In those reports, we see a key message, which is that tourists are using the new technologies and innovations for their purposes for financing, and we're seeing very sophisticated typologies.
We call typologies the way criminals and in this case, terrorists are continuously using certain criminal activities to conduct their operations.
We're seeing fraudulent humanitarian fundraising, multi platforms campaigns that shift to encrypted channels, virtual asset donations using what is called rotating wallets, the misuse of monetization features, also with live streaming and tipping.
We're seeing that a lot of these is combined with coded language, with temporary content, and also with front business to evade detection.
These typologies show that terrorist financing has a high degree of sophistication now with technologies, but it also shows that they have a big degree of adaptability, where they are adjusting their methods rapidly in response to both the regulatory response that as governments have, the changes that the platforms are doing in response to this risk and also in response to the geopolitical developments.
As a result, what we have learned is that these indicators that we observed today will continue to evolve tomorrow and it requires therefore, frameworks that are designed for continuous adaptability as well, also for flexibility and sustained relevance rather than a point in time response.
Detecting and investigating terrorist financing in this digital area obviously presents significant challenges and the global reach and rapid growth of these encryption platforms create a lot of blind spots for authorities, while the fragmentation of compliance responsibilities as well create challenges.
We have to rely on many occasions on third parties, on multiple intermediaries, and in all of these, over the compliance of the jurisdictions to these sectors.
Cross border operations, cross border data sharing constraints are also limiting the law enforcement responses.
Obviously, addressing these challenges requires a coordinated and system wide response, both from the FATF, from the global network, and all those stakeholders in this ecosystem.
We are working increasingly in supporting interagency cooperation, not only from authorities on counterterrorism and countering terrorist financing, but also other stakeholders within the authorities.
For example, the cybercrime units, the digital forensic.
These are authorities are more and more bringing up to this ecosystem of law enforcement.
This closer engagement between authorities domestically, but also with the private sector and the effective public private partnership are proving to be effective.
In this particular work, I want to signal the work that our co panelists has done, GIFCT and the cooperation we have also done to get the authorities and the private sector attain critical data, expertise, and real time insight, while benefiting from better guidance, shared typologies and more secure and trusted operating environment.
This end, we are actively engaging with big tech platforms, with social media companies to foster this information sharing and developing typologies to act swiftly to these emerging trends.
In line with the FATF and this has to be underscore with our mandate and our standards, All the measures that we take and that we ask governments to take have to be in fully respect of human rights, of financial inclusion, of data privacy.
There is no one agenda trips over another one.
It's really about making sure that we get all of it right.
This effective counterterrorism financing effort must not come to the expense of fundamental principles.
By deepening collaboration, enhancing information sharing, and aligning our efforts, we can strengthen the detection, disruption, and prebation while at the same time safeguarding the values that underpin our international peace and security and financial system.
Thank you very much.
Thank you, Elisa.
Again, thank you for making your time to come to New York at this very busy week for you as well.
You have on your desks and chairs some papers and one of them has the QR codes to the FATF reports that Eliza has just mentioned.
There's also Algeria principles and CETA work there.
We are a little bit behind the time, but I am pleased to announce that we are moving to the panel discussion.
We have nine speakers in that panel discussion that will give you perspectives from, as I said in the beginning, different angles.
This would include national authorities from member states, international, regional organizations, GCT representing the collective private sector take on this.
Also humanitarian organization and a research perspective.
I will say that what I did not say in the beginning that we are streaming live on webcast and also recording this event, so please be mindful of that.
And finally, I have to apologize on behalf of conference management who couldn't put more than five plates at the last moment.
So some of our panelists, most of our panelists, don't have that plate, but I will announce very clearly who is who, and again, apologies for that.
We will start with miss Pauline Anuchy who is head of sanctions at the French Treasury and that will open up our perspective from the member states and national authorities.
Thank you.
Excellency, dear colleagues and panelists, I'm going to speak in French.
Nearly a month and a half ago on May 19th, 2026, France hosted the fifth conference entitled No Money for Terror.
It was a reminder to us during the introduction of bringing together more than 70 high level delegation.
In his opening remarks, Ambassador Karen highlighted the priority addressed at the conference.
One, the misuse of financial innovations for finance financing terrorism.
Second, the growing overlap between terrorist financing and organized crime and third the terrorist financing strategies based on territorial control.
For the very first time in this NMFT framework, no for error framework, the challenges of financial reintegration for territories recently liberated for the control of terrorist groups that were addressed.
We will have the opportunity to revisit this topic during a technical assistance seminar for these territories that France will organize this fall.
On the sidelines of the next FATF plenary meeting.
The discussions and the joint statement adopted at the conclusion of the conference helped identify the key actions that we must collectively take to make further progress in the fight against all forms of terrorist financing.
But today, I would like to focus and go back to in relation to the topic of this panel in particular, on the risk associated with the misuse of financial innovations, especially crypto assets, which remain a major concern.
These tools provide terrorist groups with fast cross border and pseudonymous financing channels that are very difficult to trace for the authorities.
The collective response adopted is based on a central principle.
The development of these innovations must be supported and not hindered they need to be governed, in other words, by robust regulatory frameworks based on the AF ATF standards, participants at the NMFD conference called in particular for strengthening the implementation of existing standards governing virtual assets and related service providers, ensuring that investigators have access to relevant information, and also furthering efforts to access the risks associated with stable coins and non custodial wallets.
The challenge is to prevent the emergence of regulatory safe havens that would exploit differences in requirements across jurisdictions.
It will be our collective responsibility, particularly within the framework of the FATF to ensure the implementation of adequate and harmonized regulation of crypto asset services, even as the FATF continues to know that compliance remains incomplete in many jurisdictions.
Just like in 2018, when the NMFT initiative was launched, the monitoring of commitments and the technical implementation of the adopted guidelines have been entrusted to the FATF and its global network of nine FATF style regional bodies, the FATF SRBs and the priority actions outlined in the final declaration are reflected in the FATF work program for the next three years, which has been just adopted.
France is particularly pleased that the programs calls for the strengthening of the FATFs effort to ensure that all jurisdictions comply with the standards governing the regulation of crypto assets.
We also welcome the upcoming work on public private partnerships regarding information sharing, which should help ensure that investigators have full access to a blockchain data relevant to their investigations.
Lastly, the FATF plans to deepen its analysis of certain services and technologies that are particularly exposed to risk such as crypto ATMs or crypto vouchers and can count on France support in this regard.
In closing, I would like to assure you that France will strive tirelessly to advance these results, particularly through its G seven presidency this year and of its upcoming presidency of the United Nations Security Council beginning in September.
Thank you very much for your kind attention.
Thank you.
Pleasure to give the floor to our next speaker who is connecting online and for whom it is very late at this hour.
It will be doctor Mark Swain, Director of the Department of Revenue in the Government of India, Ministry of Finance.
He also is the co chair of the FATF working group on risks, trends and methods, and we've had the pleasure to work together, including on the reports that Eliza mentioned earlier.
Um, I will make our conference management make the magic and have doctor Swain on the screen.
Thank you, S.
I hope I'm modern.
So I'll start by thanking France, UNCTAD University, and G City as co hosts of India in this important event.
I'm joining online in my capacity as director of AML Safety Policy in the Finance Ministry of India.
I also want to thank Elisa Deanda Madrao, president of the FATF for gracing this event on the penalty we day of the end of a remarkable presidency in which through her vision and leadership, she has given critical structural reforms that have fundamentally strengthened the global fight against illicit finance and terrorist financing.
The intersection of TF and social media, instant messaging, and streaming platforms is, uh, uh, is an emerging is an emerging area of vulnerabilities that we have been seeing in India for some time.
We have seen multiple cases of fundraising or ISIS.
Usually, it follows three stages, digital solicitations, and then migration to encrypted messaging services, followed by virtual asset integration.
What I mean is that, funding requests are relayed on social media under the guise of collecting jar or dons or legal defense funds for imprisoned youths, and due to viral hashtags and also algorithm algorithm driven visibility, they reach sympathetic populations very easily.
Once a prospective donor makes contact via public post, they are directed to telegram or signal, where they are engaged to make payments through a local bank account or through peer to peer crypto transfers.
We face significant challenges in detecting and disrupting terrorist financing happening through social media, instant messaging and streaming platforms.
Many of the instant messaging applications are end to and encrypted.
So if you look at FATF recommendation 31, it requires countries to empower their LEAs to make legal interception of telecommunications.
This power becomes redundant in times of end to and encryption.
Secondly, much of the digital evidence is stored in service located in another country, which makes international cooperation even more important in getting access to such digital evidence.
We have also seen that while social media platforms have developed complex EI driven tools to detect hate speech and take them down, they have not done enough to detect the misuse of their platform for raising funds and moving value.
There is a voluntary public private partnership between social media platforms and competent authorities, and these platforms are important for reporting suspicious activities.
However, there is no mandated global regulation around it.
Probably the most comprehensive work in this area is a report of FATF, which Eliza also mentioned, which was released last week on terrorist financing through social media, instant messaging applications, and streaming platforms.
Well, uh, there are some gaps which this report highlights and which are quite important for us.
Our social media platforms have always been more than just communication tools.
In recent years, they have evolved into complex digital ecosystems, integrating payments, virtual assets, crowdfunding, creative monetizing, and cross border financing services.
And this transformation indeed has created serious new gaps in our financial security architecture.
What we are seeing is the emergence of sophisticated typologies, something which I mentioned we have experienced in India as well.
Terrorist actors use mainstream platforms to build trust and then amplify fundraising narratives, and then the shift to encrypted channels for payment coordination.
They exploit geopolitical crisis and humanitarian emergencies to launch tourism campaigns framed as humanitarian aid, and they target young and vulnerable populations.
They use virtual asset palets with rotating assets and also QR codes to reduce traceability.
Now, something interesting that comes out of the FATF report is basically some recommendations that FATF has made.
These recommendations are based on inputs from 121 delegations across the global network, and it also involves extensive engagement with the private sector and academia, including with G City.
G City was an important partner, private sector partner in getting inputs from the private sector.
So some of these recommendations are like, for example, first recommendation that this report makes is a very important one, that the countries should be able to clarify the regulatory scope.
There are a significant number of social media companies which are operating just like financial institutions.
So are they subject to email safety regulations like financial institutions? Are they are we waiting to let them self identify themselves as regulated entities? And then there's a need for building public private partnerships, you know, closer partnerships between regulators, supervisors, between FIUs and digital platforms.
There's a need for enhancing interagency coordination and also for strengthening international co presence, something that is very, very critical because much of the data of these social media platforms are kept in a select few countries in services in select few countries.
And that's the reason why international cooperation always helps.
And as you know, terrorist actors also exploit judicial complexity.
Cross border access to electronic evidence, streamlined mutual legal assistance mechanisms and CARE typologies are essential for disrupting these networks.
One last point is on risk assessments.
Terrorist financing related risk assessments usually do not address the vulnerabilities arising from social media platforms and from streaming platforms, and this report encourages us to specifically focus on that aspect.
That is all from my side, Svetlana.
Thank you to all.
Killer to be with us at such a late hour for you in New Delhi.
We will now move to the perspective of international and regional organizations.
It's my pleasure to give the floor to Mr.
Barton Vector, counterterrorism coordinator of the European Union.
I understand that there are some important developments on the European Union level, in particular with respect to artificial intelligence enabled technologies.
So it will be of particular interest to listen to your intervention.
Thank you.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
The beautiful New York sky this morning gave me a sense of optimism, which I think is rightly because we have indeed come a long way in countering terrorist financing.
Much has been put in place, but the picture becomes less sunny if we consider the rapidly changing threat landscape that we face and others have mentioned a number of things on this.
My key message here would be that Some of the developments that we are witnessing today are outpacing our efforts and the frameworks that we have put in place.
If anything, today's conference, apart from new insights should also give us a strong sense of urgency.
Of course, like you said, Madam Chair, we have to recognize important steps that were made.
As for the European Union, we have put in place a very comprehensive regulatory framework for combating money laundering and terrorist financing.
I'll just recall briefly that a key milestone was the establishment EU's anti money laundering authority, which means strengthened supervision of high risk financial institutions across all 27 EU member states.
It also means coordination of the work of national financial intelligence units and as of 28, it will mean the direct supervision of selected high risk obliged entities.
We've also put in place the first regulatory framework for crypto assets, which licenses and supervises crypto asset service providers.
Indeed, I should mention the steps the EU has taken to tackle the implications of artificial intelligence, for the financial sector under our AI Act, certain AI systems used in financial services are classified as high risk, and at the same time, the EU has begun to address the regulatory implications of emerging developments such as tokenized financial instruments.
All significant steps, but as I said, the rapid evolution of generative AI, decentralized finance, increasingly sophisticated methods of financial obfuscation are outpacing our regulatory and supervisory frameworks.
I believe that for three phenomena in particular, this is an exhaustive list, but for three that I want to mention here, existing regulatory frameworks are still insufficiently equipped and you'll hear some echo of what previous speakers have put forward.
First, autonomous AI driven financial evasion.
Researchers and intelligence services are already documenting what is being called agentic smurfing and this is the use of autonomous AI systems to execute thousands of micro transactions simultaneously across multiple platforms and jurisdictions, each individual one below any threshold for detection.
An AI agent cannot plan and execute a complete financial evasion campaign without any human intervention.
Automatically identifying where the gas, the regulatory gaps, what platforms to use and how to layer funds.
I know that Interpol has flagged this as well in its financial fraud threat assessment report last March.
The second phenomenon that escapes current regulatory measures, the use of digital tokens for real world assets.
We're now seeing physical assets, real estate, commodities, agricultural contracts, carbon credits converted into digital tokens tradable on blockchain platforms.
On its own, each layer of this structure may be compliant with local jurisdiction, but the composite transaction evades detection entirety.
Last January, the IMF warned that without enhanced coordination, this tokenization could fragment the global financial system into jurisdictionally bound digital silos.
That's exactly, of course, the kind of fragmentation that terrorist financiers exploit.
It's again happening faster than our regulation can keep up with.
Last worrying phenomenon that I want to mention here, the widening capability gap between the private sector and public authorities.
Major financial institutions already, as we've heard, deploy AI driven transaction monitoring.
It would be critical, I believe, for public authorities, our financial intelligence units, or law enforcement agencies to have the same access to AI capabilities as the private sector, but legal constraints currently do limit how our authorities can use AI generated insights.
What's more, the private sector is detecting patterns that it cannot always share.
Public authorities often know what to look for but cannot legally access or use the data that could provide answers.
All this, and I'll stop there, Madam Chair brings me to three recommendations that I would offer to you today.
Again, some of this goes in the same direction as other speakers before me.
First, FATF, I believe, could develop a dedicated guidance on AI driven financial evasion so that we can specifically address autonomous systems that operate without identifiable human obliged entities, it would address a structural shortcoming in the current regulatory framework.
Second, FATF risk assessment work on stable coins and unhosted wallets already in place should be explicitly extended to cover tokenized real world assets, particularly relevant for those outside the traditional financial sectors such as commodities and carbon credits.
The market is scaling now, and our window of opportunity for building the framework before these assets become unmanageable is narrow.
Last, and we do need a new generation of public private partnerships that specifically designed around AI generated financial intelligence.
This means that we must develop internationally agreed legal standards for the sharing of AI derived signals between private sector financial institutions, financial intelligence units, and of course, law enforcement across borders.
Perhaps here, the model that the EU has built, the anti money laundering authority that I mentioned earlier, and the data sharing architecture underlying it could be worth considering.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you very much for your intervention.
I think a lot to digest for several of us as you've given us strong recommendations on a lot of work ahead.
It is my pleasure now to move to miss Carmen Munoz, Director of counterterrorism at the International Criminal Police Organization, Interpol for short.
It's my pleasure welcoming you here.
Please go ahead and I think it will be very important to hear the operational side of this discussion that we have started.
Thank you.
I Thank you very much, Dear Chair.
Excellencies, distinguished delegates and partners, ladies and gentlemen.
I would like to first thank the government of France, India, as well as our dear colleagues from Cité UN City and G City for co organizing this important side event and counterterrorism financing.
Terrorism doesn't happen in a vacuum.
Behind every attack, every recruitment network, every propaganda campaign, there is money Our ability to detect, disrupt and dismantle terrorist financing is therefore not just a part of our counterterrorism mission.
It is the mission The financing of terrorism has never been more complex, as some of you have said, diffused or adaptive.
We are witnessing terrorist organizations that have mastered financial agility, moving seamlessly between formal banking systems and informal value transfer networks, exploiting regulatory gaps and increasingly leveraging emerging technologies to move funds across borders.
These developments require us to work together with international partners and tap on one another's unique expertise.
At Interpol, combating terrorism financing is a central pillar of our strategic and operational line of efforts.
We connect 196 member countries to a trusted network of law enforcement and deliver concrete results against terrorism and transnational crime, making multilateral commitments an operational reality.
Since 2023, Interpol conducted around 50 global counterterrorism operations involving over 100 member countries in all regions, resulting in hundreds of arrests and the disruption of terrorist financing networks across the world.
A landmark example is Operation Catalyst conducted last year.
This was a first of its kind joint operation with A, targeting terrorism financing across six African countries.
The operation led to 83 arrests, the screening of more than 15,000 persons of interest, and the uncovering of approximately 260 million of US dollars, including in virtual currencies, partly linked to terrorism related activities.
A key new instrument underpinning these efforts is the silver notice.
Interpols first new color coded notice in over 20 years.
This was launched in January 2025 as a pilot initiative enabling police in over 80 countries to trace and identify illegal assets, including cash, real estate, yacht, and virtual currencies across borders.
Silver notices and Dian allow member countries to publicly request information of criminal assets and use the information for seizing or recovering assets under national law.
Engagement has been strong with over 200 active silver notice requests seeking to trace a total of $2.2 billion in assets.
More than 2,500 responses have also been shared by participating countries and over $40 million in assets already traced or identified.
We also work closely with the Financial Action Task Force to ensure that the standards for anti money laundering and counterterrorism financing can be implemented on the ground.
But we must be honest about the gaps.
Many member countries, particularly those in the regions most affected by terrorism, still lack adequate legal frameworks, financial intelligence capacity, or access to global databases.
In addition, new technologies from decentralized finance to anonymous digital wallets continue to outpace regulatory and investigative adoption.
There is also the persistent challenge of information silos.
Financial intelligence held by one agency in one country rarely reaches the investigators who need it in another country in time to matter.
The cost of delayed sharing is impunity.
It is thus vital that member countries take concrete action and make full use of interpals channels and tools such as the silver notice to facilitate timely exchange of financial intelligence with international partners.
Terrorism survives on funding.
When we cut the money, we cut the live.
Interpol stands ready with our partners of the United Nations and with every member country committed to this work to ensure that those who finance terror find no safe harbor anywhere in the world.
Thank you.
Thank you very much and congratulations to Interpol for the successes of its operation, including the one you mentioned in cooperation with Apol.
We have just about 20 minutes left for the panel discussion and still five speakers.
I would ask everybody to please be mindful of this circumstance.
Our next speaker will be connecting online.
It's my pleasure to introduce Mr.
Guillermo Moncau, Deputy Executive Secretary of the Inter American Committee Against Terrorism of the Organization of American States.
If we can have him on the screen, that would be terrific.
Good afternoon.
Can you hear me? Yes.
First, I would like to thank Sitt and the permanent missions of France and India to the United Nations, also to UN OCT, and GIFCT for inviting the Organization of American States to participate in this important discussion.
From the perspective of DOES and its Inter American committee against terrorism, the terrorism financing landscape in Latin America and the Caribbean is evolving rapidly.
While traditional methods such as trade based money laundering and informal value transfer systems continue to pose significant risks, new technologies are creating additional challenges that require our immediate attention.
One of the most significant developments in the growing convergence between transnational organized crime and terrorist financing, although criminal organizations are motivated by profit and terrorist groups by ideology, they increasingly rely on the same facilitators, financial networks, corruption schemes, and illicit markets.
Criminal activities such as drug trafficking, illegal mining, and arms trafficking generate and move funds through financial channels that can ultimately support terrorist activities.
At the same time, the rapid growth of virtual assets, it's reshaping the regional risk landscape.
Terrorism financing risks are increasingly associated with crypto wallets, cross border transfers, and the rapid conversion of virtual assets into fiat currency.
Reducing the time available for authorities to detect and disrupt suspicious transactions.
We're also seeing increased use of stable coins because of their speed, liquidity, and efficiency.
Recent investigations in the region have demonstrated how critical networks are using commercial front companies, trade based money laundering and virtual assets to move illicit funds across jurisdictions, highlighting the growing nexus between organized crime and terrorist financing.
Addressing these challenges require a comprehensive approach.
A strong legal and regulatory frameworks must be complemented by the effective implementation of targeted financial sanctions, stronger operational cooperations, public private partnerships, and sustained international collaboration.
This is precisely where CGT contributes through technical assistance, legislative support, capacity building, and regional cooperation, we help OES member states to strengthen their capacity to prevent, detect, investigate, and prosecute terrorism financing.
We also promote information sharing among financial intelligence units, law enforcement agencies, prosecutors, regulators, and international partners while supporting countries in addressing emerging risks associated with virtual assets.
As these threats continue to evolve, so too mass our response.
Only through coordinated international action, a strong partnership and the continuous adaptation of our legal and operational tools will be able to effectively counter terrorism financing in this increasingly complex environment.
Thank you very much.
Indeed, you've mentioned important aspects, including the evolving nature of nexus with transnational organized crime.
We're working on this topic quite extensively and hope to continue to do so with the FATF as well under the new biennium.
It is my pleasure to now give the floor to Mr.
Alejandro Mataya policy coordination Officer at the Office of the Chief Terrorism Prevention Branch Division for Treaty Affairs at UNODC, which stands for United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.
Alejandro, you have the floor.
Thank you, Sit Lana.
Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen.
First, allow me to thank the organizers for the timely event and for the invitation to take part in the event itself.
Unity's contribution to countering the financing of terrorism is rooted in implementation.
Our objective is to support member states in translating international obligations under the International Convention for the suppression of the financial financing of terrorism, the most widely ratified of all UN counterterrorism instruments now with 191 state parties, as well as relevant Security Council resolutions, FFTA standards and other international policy guidance, translating this into effective legal, institutional, and operational measures that can prevent, detect, investigate, and disrupt terrorism financing.
UNODC also works to coordinate UN efforts on these issues, serving as the chair of the UN Global City Coordination Compact working group on criminal justice, legal responses, and countering of the financing of terrorism.
Our approach is comprehensive and holistic, addressing key vulnerabilities in the and informal financial sector.
And throughout the terrorist financing value chain.
Through Us' work with member states, we're seeing terrorist financing actors and groups using a broader range of financial mechanism to raise, move, and accumulate financial and non financial assets.
For example, we increasingly see the use of and register money value transfers, service providers alongside virtual asset service providers and a broad range of payment service providers.
This is a trend that we expect to continue.
In this context, we support member states efforts to disrupt terrorist financing networks by improving the understanding of terrorist financing risk and assisting member states in developing actionable terrorist financial intelligence for regulators and law enforcement.
The whole of system approach recognizes that counterterrorism financing frameworks depend on effective information sharing, operational coordination between competent authorities and constructive engagement with the private sector.
This includes strengthening information sharing mechanisms through joint task forces, supporting strategic and operational analysis, implementing proactive parallel financial investigations, and ensuring that counterterrorism financial measures do not inadvertently undermine financial inclusion throughout risk based anti money laundering CFT controls.
This implementation focus support remains particularly relevant in the current threat environment on the basis of our work with member states, FFDA's comprehensive update on terrorism financial risk, and the most recent report by the Analytical Support and sanctions monitoring team.
We have enhanced our focus on payment and money value service providers and virtual asset service providers in our terrorist financial disruption models.
We will enhance our electronic evidence portfolio to include social media payment service providers.
At the request of member states and consistent with the findings of the UN and FFDA, we will continue to focus on traditional methods, including cash movements, mobile money ecosystems, extortion, illicit trade, and the abuse of legitimate trade and commercial activity.
As terrorist financing methods continue to evolve, UNODC will continue to support member states to identify emerging risks associated with financial technologies.
This includes supporting authorities in strengthening engagement with private sector service providers and developing practical guidance on obtaining, preserving, and using electronic financial evidence in terrorism financing and related investigations.
Ultimately, Un's objective is not only to strengthen effective implementation of international standards, it is to help member states build sustainable institutional capabilities that translate international commitments into effective operational action, reinforcing both security and long term economic resilience.
Thank you very much.
Thank you, Alejandro.
We will move to our next speaker and that will be from Giv Citi, our co organizers.
It's my pleasure to give the floor to doctor Nakam Al Karhili.
I apologize.
It's been a long day.
Membership and program senior lead at GivCT, please, the floor is yours.
Thank you so much first for hosting us and thanks to the permanent missions of France and India, our colleagues at UNCTAD and OCT for convening this session.
I want to build on what our Executive Director, Noreen mentioned earlier in her remarks on G CTs work, but I also want to bring in what our member companies and various stakeholders from governments and civil society are also seeing on the ground.
Overall, just as the broader threat of terrorism itself is diversifying, the way that those actors are financing themselves is also diversifying right alongside it.
Terrorist financing online is not consolidating into one channel.
Unfortunately, it is spreading, as many of you have noted today across many surfaces, as the ecosystem itself, the same features that are letting a creator monetize on an audience, take a donation or sell merchandise, are the same surfaces that can be exploited to finance terrorist actors.
Um, and also this area is moving fast enough.
It's moving fast enough that it became one of the priority themes of our work at GP CT where we've dedicated a space to mapping how terrorist financing is evolving online.
And what we're hearing directly from the companies and other stakeholders across the sectors is that this is no longer one typology.
It's spanning marketplace transactions, crypto pathways, crowdfunding, and financial details that are shared over messaging apps, and often all of these things are combined.
Rarely are they in isolation.
One pattern that the companies are flagging are legitimate looking commercial activities.
So think concerts, merchandise sales, and even wellness and personal care product lines.
They're openly operating, they're hard to distinguish from an ordinary small business until you're able to trace where those proceeds go.
Another pattern that the companies are also flagging to us are donation campaigns that blend crypto and informal money services.
We've seen fundraising for vulnerable populations through local transactions and converting into cash on the ground, which means that we ultimately have very little visibility.
The laundering itself is starting to also automate.
Just as a colleague noted earlier, we're seeing those patterns of agent smurfing where autonomous tools are fragmenting donations into hundreds of micro transactions across multiple blockchains in minutes, where there's a volume and a speed that no manual review process was built to or is able to catch at this point.
So for decades, the legal architecture around countering terrorist financing has been the most solid, best tested, part of the counter terrorism toolkit in many ways.
Banks and money service businesses have known their customers, monitored flows, filed suspicious activity reports, and frozen accounts.
Online, that structure is getting messy too quickly because peer to peer transfers and decentralized payment rails often don't have an obligated intermediary for those duties to attach to it in the first place.
The backbone of CT here has relies on many years, simply isn't really built into a lot of what tech companies operating and that gap is where a lot of the legal and reputational exposure for the tech sector is now sitting.
That is showing up in very ordinary looking product features, a listing on a marketplace, a digital wallet, a checkout link that routes from a social post to a third party seller, the way that many platforms are experiencing today.
These are all are financial touchpoints now, even though none of these features technically were built with that exposure in mind originally.
Our threat surface mapping highlights each of these that is a distinct signal type tied to a distinct platform type precisely because a one size fits all detection approach does not work across all these different products.
Is also an evasion problem hitting the verification systems directly, actors, simply renaming a business or accounting while keeping the same underlying signals, the same email address or payment details can make a sanctions hit or platform ban functionally meaningless.
But I will try to end on a relatively positive note, which is the fact that the companies are both aware, working together, and attempting and doing their best to actively engage with these issues and problem solve.
They are sharing examples where they're adding more layers of red teaming related to terrorist financial exploitations that are leading to concrete changes in the product design before launch.
This is exactly the kind of pre deployment thinking that we are helping them scale.
We're also seeing some discussions around cross text signal sharing coordination, where appropriate privacy safeguards are also available, along with some public private coordination models where blockchain analytics firms and stable coins issuers are able to jointly freeze flagged wallets in near real time.
Looking ahead, GCT is working to better understand the convergence between terrorist financing and organized crime where the lines are blurring faster and either counter financing or content moderation frameworks were built to handle separately.
Just as these bad actors are being adaptive and fast, as the colleague mentioned earlier, so must we.
I'd encourage this continued investment in exactly that multi stakeholder mapping and work together because no single sector sees the whole picture alone.
Thank you all.
Thank you very much.
Forward looking and proactive point of view.
I think it's important that we really take steps to identify what can be done and what is being done well.
A short housekeeping matter, I see some free seats at the table and some of you are really cramping behind.
I know it's confusing that it says reserved, but they are actually free.
By all means, don't feel like you need to be behind.
We now move online to a speaker with a very important perspective from the humanitarian action.
I know that she will highlight also a very important forward and proactive, an innovative take on some issues that she will be speaking on.
It's my pleasure to give the floor to miss Emma O'Leary, head of Humanitarian Policy Unit at Norwegian Refugee Council.
If we can have her on the screen, please.
Hi, colleagues.
I hope you can hear me.
Unfortunately, having worked perfectly in the tests we did beforehand, my camera appears to not be working.
In the assumption you can hear me loud and clear, I'll get started.
I know we don't have that much time left.
I I will, as has been mentioned, offer a slightly different perspective today.
I am representing a humanitarian organization.
We are independent, we're impartial, we are focused on responding to needs in the areas that we work, and so we're not focusing on any political or security or military efforts or aims.
And want to talk about the fact that in many of the environments that we work in, there are counterterrorism measures or indeed sanctions in place and where these are in place, they can, if designed or implemented in ways that don't protect humanitarian action, they can impact our ability to respond to humanitarian needs.
One of the most persistent operational challenges we face is in getting money into and around the context that we work in.
This is because in many cases, banks are not willing to take the risk of making those transfers for us.
Of course, for humanitarian organizations, moving money is a fundamental importance.
We need to be able to pay our staff, contractors, suppliers, and if we can't do that, it's ultimately vulnerable people who cannot receive the assistance required.
With that in mind, we have done a lot of policy work on this issue in terms of pushing for humanitarian exemptions in different counter terrorism measures.
With some good success, we've also seen some very positive developments in recent weeks from the Financial action Task force in the revision of recommendation six, which now reflects existing humanitarian exemptions.
And we have also started to look increasingly at the use of new technologies to try and support us to get money into around the context that we work in.
To that end, we've recently completed a report which is called Exploring blockchain options for humanitarian transactions, and it examines how humanitarians can utilize new technology to support operations in contexts where access to financial services is restricted or is particularly challenging.
I'm going to share just quickly three or so findings from the report.
The report is available online, and I would encourage you all to have a look in more detail when you can.
And so the first finding is that the biggest problem for us in getting money into contexts like Syria is not legal prohibition, but rather financial sector de risking.
So the reason that we struggle to get money into these kinds of contexts is not because they are prohibited in terms of transactions, but rather because banks are unwilling to take on what they perceive to be a risk.
So therefore, there is often a gap between what is actually allowed by sanctions and counterterrorism frameworks and what financial institutions are willing to actually practically facilitate.
This means that while those policy advancements that I mentioned are so important and while they have had many positive impacts in terms of enabling our work, there are still Significant challenges remaining in terms of risk appetite and uncertainty real or perceived for banks.
Of course, it follows that reducing access to formal financial challenges or channels, I should say, does not eliminate the movement of funds for us, but it rather forces us actually to look for other channels.
In terms of finding number two, here I would like to highlight the fact that blockchain may offer compliance advantages rather than simply creating new risks.
We've heard a lot today around concerns that new technology like blockchain may in some cases present an illicit financing risk.
Our report asks whether some specific blockchain based tools can offer a high degree of transparency and oversight.
Looked particularly at the use of regulated stable coins, specifically in this case, the digital US dollar, which holds a steady value, which moves over a blockchain network and we found that in fact it does.
Unlike something like cash transactions, blockchain transfers using regulated stable coin and create transaction records that are immutable, they create audit trails.
In theory, this can actually, in some cases make monitoring and tracing much easier than what it might be otherwise.
This is, of course, important because of persistent concern about moving money into challenging environments is being able to show that it ended up where it was meant to go.
And the same financial rules apply here that apply, of course, to ordinary transfers as well.
Then finding number three is that innovation is not a substitute for regulatory or banking reform.
Perhaps the most important conclusion of the report is that blockchain, while potentially an important tool for the sector, is not a replacement for formal banking channels, and our long term objective really remains access to conventional banking services and better implementation of existing humanitarian safeguards and exemptions.
The report really argues that efforts to address de risking and improve humanitarian banking access should continue.
Otherwise, ultimately, it will be banks that will decide where we can respond as humanitarians rather than humanitarian needs.
New technologies like Blockchain should really be viewed as additional tools for difficult operating environments rather than a substitute for functioning financial infrastructure.
With that, I will hand the floor back many thanks.
Thank you, Emma, so much and it's really a pity we couldn't see you.
But your presentation was very clear and we will also reference this report at the resources attached to the web story that will come about this event.
Our last panelist is also online.
It's my pleasure to introduce miss Janine Ella Abatan, senior researcher at the Institute for Security Studies.
Uh, based in Dhakar and focusing her research on particularly affected areas in West Africa, which is of course, come under scrutiny and attention given the speed with which the threat evolves there and this does not exclude the financing aspect of the threat.
Ella, you have the virtual floor, I hope the screen as well.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
I hope you can hear me.
I would like to also thank the organizers of this important event for inviting the Institute for Security Studies.
I thought and if I is with me, I thought I will share with you stories.
We don't have a lot of time, so I'll focus on two of them that we've heard from the ground in West Africa on a violent extremist group have been funding themselves.
The first one that is on the screen, I'll read it and then say some of this story that we hear from West Africa say about this discussion, but also more globally around responses to countering terrorism financing.
This is a story we heard in Nigeria from someone who joined EWAp who said every day there were approximately 10,000 fishermen paying to fish in the water controlled by the group.
The group could collect up to 50 million per day or 18 billion per year through this fishing license.
Furthermore, the group levied taxes on processed fish.
Txes on 50,000 bag of fish shipped annually generated at least 75 million.
You have the amount in US dollar just to give you an approximate of how much that is per month or 900 million yearly.
If we can move to the next one that takes us to co de oir, someone who collaborated with the group for the support of Islam and Muslim, and if IT can please move to the next one.
Thank you.
Since I know the sector well, people entrust me with the cattle to sell.
I met a brother who share an offer from the terrorists.
He asked me to sell the cattle.
I accepted.
They can give me 50 million fracier fee per convoy and I can manage two convoy a month.
You can do the calculation.
We're talking about $80,000 per convoy times two per month.
So what can we learn from these stories that we hear from the ground? What we have seen through research that we've conducted in the Lake Chad Basin region, in the Sahel region, but also in coastal West African countries, is that group are able to mobilize important amounts of money by tapping into existing illicit activities.
We were talking about cattle, which is an illicit activity.
Fishing, which is illicit activity, sorry.
But also tapping into illicit activities.
We can add to that list artisanal good mining, for example.
What we've also seen through our research is that the funding strategy of this group is very local and is based on the capacity to create alliances of interest with people who are involved in these activities.
The capacity to also continue generating money through extortion, transition on good, but also through kidnapping for ransome just to name those few.
What does this mean when it comes to responses? I think the first thing and we've heard it already at the beginning of the meeting is that context matters.
Responses must be based on a deep understanding of local realities.
Solution cannot be copy pasted.
It is important for solution to address local root causes, local realities.
Responses must also take complexity into account as some of these activity, whether elicit or illicit are income generating activities, and these need to be taken into consideration.
However, in linked to the discussion that we're having, we've seen that violent extremist group strategy has evolved over time, whether it come to the funding strategy, but also to the operational strategy.
We've seen, for example, the move toward the use of drone affected West African but also African countries should anticipate.
There's a need to learn lessons from other context on the use of new technology and how this can be leveraged by violent extremist group to fund themselves but also to operate to already start looking at the risk linked to the misuse of mobile money, of unregulated crypto market and put in place the necessary regulatory measures, but also build internal capacity, partnership and reinforce regional collaboration.
Most of the work that we conduct are online and are available to the audience, and I am also available to share more bilaterally with those who are interested.
Thank you, Chair.
Very interesting intervention.
As we could see, we don't need to be too sophisticated in technology to succeed in financing terrorism.
As many speakers noted in their interventions today, it is the multi layered nature of it that adds to the complexity and that's why we have such a wide range of stakeholders and speakers today to at least try to pinpoint to the multifaceted nature of this phenomenon and of the responses that we need to come up with.
We ran out of time already, so I am afraid we will not be opening the floor for interventions unless there are some burning issues.
Before I give 1 minute to my colleague at OCT to just say a final word here, It is also my pleasure to announce that CTAD is continuing the work on this topic.
Our annual report on gaps assessment at the end of this year or early next year will be dedicated precisely to this topic as announced by our Assistant Secretary-General in the opening.
We will look at the persistent gaps in the implementation of recommendations related to the Algeria principles and F Recommendation 15.
To that extent, we will also be launching a database on our website that will reference not only international regional framework documents, but also research material and other important sources for your attention, we'll announce it separately on our social media, but it's of direct relevance to today's discussion.
France Lem from OCT, managing the global program on countering the financing of terrorism with one last minute of this discussion.
Thank you.
Lena.
Excellency, distinguished delegates, ladies and gentlemen.
On behalf of CT and UNO CT, let me sincerely thank you for joining us today in this event that gathered more than 400 registered online attendees and to express our most sincere gratitude to the government of France and India as well as to the global Internet forum to counterterrorism for their support.
We also thank Madam President and Madraso on Mexico's last day of the ATF presidency and for her steadfast commitment to advancing the AML and CFT agenda.
We already wish success to UK and India on their presidency and vice presidency ahead.
Finally, our warm thanks to all distinguished panelists for sharing their expertise.
Today's interventions and escort for emerging financial technologies and new terrorist financing behaviors are reshaping the environment in which member states pursue security, financial integrity, and sustainable development.
These developments affect not only how we detect and disrupt terrorist financing, but also how we safeguard financial inclusion, humanitarian action, and the rule of law.
Message delivered today convert into four main areas.
Terrorist financing risk are becoming increasingly diversified and complex.
As reminded by India, social media and messaging platforms have evolved into digital ecosystems, integrating payments, virtual assets, crow funding, and cross border services, creating new gaps in our financial security architecture and not to mention the limited possibilities provided by AI to multiply those threats as noted by the EU.
Our understanding of risk, including linkages with organized crime, must therefore remain dynamic and take those new threats into urgent considerations.
No continent seems to be immune anymore from terrorist financing threats associated with virtual assets as flagged by it.
We also heard that effective responses require cooperation across sectors and borders among member states, global city compact entities, regional, international partners, academia, civil society, humanitarian actors, and the private sector.
We commend the work done by GIF City in this regard with the creation of the platform and the recent investigative successes of Interpol through the use of the silver notices.
Another point raised today is that capacity building must more than ever be risk based and geared towards operational needs, helping member states assess risk and sectors, use financial intelligence and digital evidence, strengthen investigations, address regulatory gaps, and cooperate effectively with the private sector, social media platform, and big tech.
We commend in this regard the extensive work done by our sister entity, UNODC.
And finally, today's discussion also reaffirmed that counterterroris financing measures must be a strong and yet risk based, proportionate, and consistent with international law.
These are essential conditions to protect security while preserving innovation, humanitarian action, and financial inclusion, as well as financial re inclusion.
As just underscored by France, looking forward to the full seminar on the margin of the FATF plenary.
Grateful as well to NARC for its work and the recent report on this topic, pointing de risking as a major factor.
Today's event also built on the momentum of the fifth nome for error 2026, hosted by France in May, which took stock of progress is done under Security Council Resolution 24 62.
And to the 2025 FATF comprehensive update on terrorist financing risk.
It also reflects the direction set by the Algeria Principles pursuant to the Delhi Declaration, a reminder that innovation and regulatory responses must evolve together.
We look forward to carrying today's momentum into joint action, and I thank you and wishing you a productive counterterrorism Week.
We can make the promise to each other to join forces, do it together.
Since we have exhausted our time, I want to thank our speakers, our high level participants, and our panelists online and in the room, but also all of you who attended this event over your lunch hour.
I know it's one of the busiest day of the week today, so we particularly appreciate your interest.
With that, I would also like to thank the interpreters who provided French and English translation today.
Um, and thank the Mission of France for that as well and our conference management colleagues here and those who have been helping behind the scenes.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.