Trump's next term might change how terrorist groups get their money
Middle-east groups keep finding new ways to fund their operations through global crime networks and digital money. Trumpʼs upcoming presidency plans to target these financial streams
In about two months Donald Trump will start his second term‚ focusing on middle-east conflicts and terrorist financing. His team aims to cut-off money flows to iran-backed groups operating across different regions
The post oct-7 conflict showed how groups like Hezbollah and Hamas keep getting money despite sanctions: their income comes from various sources (drug trade illegal diamonds and crypto-currencies). Last fall Israeli forces hit Hezbollahs main cash source - the al-Qard al-Hasan group but the organization keeps working through other channels
These terror groups work like global businesses now; they get most funds from Iran (around $800mil yearly) but also run world-wide schemes. Hezbollah uses west-african countries to move drug money: they work with south-american cartels moving stuff through ivory coast and guinea. The group gets about 40% of its money from selling drugs
The newer problem is Captagon - a drug thats big in syria now. Its helping terror groups in two ways:
* Gives them lots of money
* Makes fighters less scared in battle
* Spreads fast across borders
* Easy to make and sell
Modern tech makes things harder for law enforcement. Hamas and other groups now use crypto-currencies and fake charities to get money; in fall-2023 argentina caught people sending about 2bil pesos to Hezbollah through bitcoin. The us treasury says Hamas gets like $10mil monthly just from fake charity groups
To fix this trump needs to work with countries where these groups operate - not just with americas friends. They should close drug labs (like jordan did this january) and track digital money better. Its gonna take team-work between different countries police and spy agencies to stop these money flows
