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Members of the terrorist cells that killed 164 victims in two attacks in Paris and Brussels transferred funds between prepaid debit cards to avoid detection by law enforcement, a Belgian official said Thursday.
If there is a single lesson to be learned from the terror attacks that killed more than 30 people in Brussels Tuesday it is the importance of information sharing.
EU member-states must more quickly transpose and implement the bloc's proposed and finalized mandates to cut off terrorists' funding and bolster security, European leaders said following a ministerial meeting Thursday.
The European Commission on Tuesday proposed new steps to bolster the bloc's fight against terrorism and money laundering, including limits on the transportation of cash and the creation of centralized bank account registers.
EU nations have until next week to answer a survey on terrorist financing ahead of the February release of a European Commission action plan to address the issue, officials disclosed Friday.
France will seek to implement the European Union's latest anti-money laundering directive by September, nine months ahead of a mandated deadline, according to a French official.
An intergovernmental watchdog will soon review how nations are contending with legal obstacles to sharing financial intelligence on terrorism as part of a broader effort to clamp down on militant funding.
Among the many challenges of identifying terrorist funds is the fact that they can be hidden in plain sight, according to Colin P. Clarke, an associate political scientist at the RAND Corporation who studies the subject.
Terrorist attacks in Europe over the past year have done more than spur talk of new rules from the EU. They've also prompted major financial institutions to adjust their compliance controls in an effort to root out terrorism's financial backers. Such has been the case for Western Union Europe.
The French government intends to move quickly to strengthen protections against terrorist financiers, including broadening investigatory access to data on suspected militants and toughening oversight of prepaid cards, a top official said Monday.
