June 20th, 2014
The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS for short,
recently became the world’s wealthiest terrorist organizations. In fact, with an
estimated net worth of $2 billion, according to the International Business Times, ISIS may have more cash than the gross domestic product of several small countries including Gibraltar, the Virgin Islands, and Palau.
ISIS has achieved this feat in a relatively short time span. Over the last few years, ISIS has made a lot of money in some traditional avenues: mainly through activities like plundering, pillaging, and extortion. ISIS has also gained
controlled several...
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June 9th, 2014
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May 30th, 2014
Last week Ukrainians
cast their ballots for a new president. It was the first election for the position since the nation ousted its allegedly-corrupt former President, Viktor Yanukovych.
Before he fled to Russia, Yanukovych lived on 340 acres of land on the banks of the river Dnieper in Ukraine. His former home, a five story mansion named Mezhyhiriya, is decorated with marble, crystal, and precious woods. It is difficult to overstate the
luxury of this palatial building. Its cedar doors are worth $64,000, the wall...
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May 27th, 2014
While we still have a long way to go, the last decade has made it much harder for terrorists to hide money from authorities. About fifteen years ago,
an article in the Washington Post argued Osama bin Laden was able to “shroud his finances in such secrecy and with so many front companies that American officials acknowledge it could take years to decipher them.” At the time, U.S. officials understood that the key to bin Laden’s power was his extensive wealth. Yet they were stymied in their ability to track his or other terrorists’ resources as they did not have...
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