Forensics Journal - Stevenson University 2013 | Page 43

STEVENSON UNIVERSITY

Are You Funding Terrorism?
Identity Theft’s Role in Terrorist Financing & a
Comprehensive Approach for Prevention
Philippa Nash
The ease with which terrorists can obtain funds from fraudulent
activity has lowered the cost of carrying out large scale terror plots.
The estimated cost of the USS Cole bombing in 2000 was between
$5,000-$10,000, the cost of the London bombings in 2005 was
$15,600, and the 9/11 attacks in New York, Washington, D.C., and
Pennsylvania in 2001 cost terrorists between $400,000-$500,000
(Perri, 29). Relative to the estimated $3.3 trillion dollars spent on the
post-9/11 response and subsequent wars, the cost to orchestrate these
events was extremely low. (Sanger). Terrorist financing has become
more complex and difficult to detect, therefore, a comprehensive plan
with a division of responsibility among international agencies, law
enforcement, and the public and private sectors is needed.

pieces to find the weakest links, was proposed by Bruce Schneier,
a world renowned security expert, who considers this “divide-todefend” strategy as the best way to prevent terrorism (Schneier,
107-108).
With the proliferation of personal information on the Internet and
other databases, it is not surprising that identity theft has been a precursor crime to a significant number of terrorist plots. Per the Code
of Federal Regulations, identity theft is described as, “fraud committed or attempted using the identifying information of another person
without permission” and includes details such as social security numbers, dates of birth, passport contents, and electronic and biometric
data (fingerprints, iris and retina scans, voice print) in its definition
of identifying information (Finklea, 2). Identity theft occurs in a
significant number of fraud schemes and terrorists have found it to be
a successful technique in attaining funds.

Low-budget operations have led terrorists to obtain funding under
the radar of American law enforcement and intelligence agencies who
predominantly scrutinize larger transactions. Terrorists steal identities
or private information from unsuspecting citizens and then forge and
create documents needed to enter the United States, take out credit in
the victim’s name, and commit other fraudulent activities (Kane and
Wall, 1). The anonymous nature of fraud makes it a common tool
for terrorists to obtain funding for, “weaponry, but also for training,
travel, and living expenses” (Kane and Wall, 1). Given that identity
theft is often a precursor to further criminal and terrorist activity, it
is necessary to assess the threat of wide spread identity theft and take
comprehensive measures to minimize it at the global, national, state,
and local levels.

According to Judith Collins, an expert at the Michigan State University Identity Theft Crime and Research Lab, every terrorist act
against the United States has involved identity theft in some manner
and five percent of all identity theft cases are connected to terrorism
(Perri, 30). With 9.9 million cases of identity theft in the United
States in 2008, approximately 495,000 were related to terrorist activities (Finklea, 9). A 2006 study indicated that $15.6 billion United
States dollars were lost due to identity theft in one year (Synovate, 9).
Since most identity thefts are used to commit further criminal acts,
the losses are probably higher if time and effort by victims trying to
recover their identities and restore their credit histories are accounted
for in the calculation. The attention and funding spent on reducing
identity theft will not only make it more difficult for terrorists to plan
attacks, but will also reduce other crimes commonly affiliated with
identity theft.

Detecting impending threats and taking better measures to protect
against them are critical to reducing the risk of terrorism. According
to the United Nations Counter-T