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The Islamic American Relief Agency (IARA) was the US-based branch of the Sudanese-founded Islamic Africa Relief Agency. IARA was incorporated in 1985 under Missouri law as a tax-exempt charity and sought donations from Muslim expatriates living in the United States to provide humanitarian relief and fund development projects. The charity was known to have raised between $1–3m each year between 1991 and 2003.

The IARA network was designated by the US Department of Treasury in October 2004 for providing direct financial support to Maktab Al-Khidamat (the precursor to al Qaeda) and Osama bin Laden, as well as to Hamas (US Department of the Treasury 2004). The US-branch of IARA tried

25 Misuse of the non-profit sector The ruling in this case arguably renders it difficult to donate to an NPO’s humanitarian endeavours without fear of prosecution should that NPO also support the terrorist endeavours of the same organisation. To a degree, it would seem difficult in practice to make the crucial distinction in terms of funding decisions.

Conclusion

The typologies and case studies reproduced here show that known cases of non-profit exploitation mostly came in the form of:

• establishing a sham charity, often registered and acting according to regulatory requirements but primarily engaged in laundering or collecting funds for illicit or terrorist purposes; or

• administering an ostensibly legitimate charity that delivered funds to a sister organisation which provided humanitarian relief but also engaged in criminal or terrorist activities.

It was difficult to identify from the detail given in the available typologies and case studies the dominant method(s) by which the funds were transferred and to what extent the schemes depended on formal versus informal modes of funds transfer. It was clear, though, that most schemes had used a complex system of accounts held by different individuals or entities, and based in multiple jurisdictions, to funnel and hence obscure funds transactions.

The pattern, albeit based on a handful of cases, indicates that the abuse of NPOs is predominantly for the purpose of financing terrorism rather than for laundering funds. It is unclear whether this pattern reflects reality or political focus. What is evident from these case studies is that legitimate NPOs are apparently not the target of misuse. This is not to say that involuntary misuse does not occur since fraud, which is outside this scope’s report, is almost certainly being committed at times without the complicity of the organisation and is probably facilitated by inadequate financial oversight.

However, in most detected cases of money laundering and terrorism financing, collusion has generally existed among persons controlling the NPO, who chose to create an organisation to suit their purposes rather than infiltrate and corrupt an existing entity.

raised funds for Hamas, an SDN-listed group, were found liable for the death of David Boim, a US citizen who was killed in Israel by two alleged Hamas militants. In the leading judgement from the original finding, Judge Posner noted that

Hamas is...engaged not only in terrorism but also in providing health, educational and other social welfare services. The defendants...directed their support exclusively to those services (Transcript of proceedings, Boim v Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development et al. 2008, US 7th Circuit Court of Appeals (Chicago), Posner R, 3 Dec 2008: 36).

However, he noted in addition that

...if you give money to an organization that you know to be engaged in terrorism, the fact that you earmark it for the organization’s non-terrorist activities does not get off the liability hook (Transcript of proceedings, Boim v Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development et al.

2008, US 7th Circuit Court of Appeals (Chicago), Posner R, 3 December 2008: 36).

In a dissenting judgement, Judge Rovner noted that the majority’s approach treats all financial support provided to a terrorist organization and its affiliates as support for terrorism, regardless of whether the money is given to the terrorist organization itself, to a charitable entity controlled by that organization, or to an intermediary organization, and regardless of what the money is actually used to do (Transcript of proceedings, Boim v Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development et al. 2008, US 7th Circuit Court of Appeals (Chicago), Rover I, 3 Dec 2008: 60).

An en banc review had previously argued that the requirement to prove causation was relaxed in cases involving terrorist organisations. Liability, however, was reinstated with Judge Posner reiterating that irrespective of the defendant’s alleged charitable intentions, donating money to an entity that is known to commit terrorist act supposes that ‘one knows there is substantial probability that the organization engages in terrorism but one does not care’

(Transcript of proceedings, Boim v Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development et al. 2008, US 7th Circuit Court of Appeals (Chicago), Posner R, 3 Dec 2008: 20).

With respect to terrorism financing, the greatest risk for legitimate charities appears to be what happens to funds once outside the organisation’s immediate administrative jurisdiction. Due diligence and similar measures are promoted as curtailing this risk but even among organisations that have the capacity to invest in such measures, circumstances sometimes mean these guards have to be dropped.

Sector surveys have shown that NPOs need to do more to improve their financial management and controls, and to increase their uptake of risk management strategies. Without these in place, the risk of misuse is markedly greater. The non-profit sector has argued that there is no evidence for sustained money laundering/terrorism financing-related misuse having occurred because of a lack of financial oversight. The available evidence suggests this is so but its limited nature excludes any firmer inference.

27 Regulation of the non-profit sector

Regulation of the