SAAR Foundation

Last updated

The SAAR Foundation was a flagship corporation representing charities, think tanks, and business entities. SAAR was named after its founder, Saudi patriarch Sulaiman Abdul Aziz Al Rajhi, a man close to the Saudi ruling family and on the Golden Chain, a list of early al-Qaeda supporters. [1] SAAR is alternatively referred to as the Safa Group. [2] The SAAR Foundation, which was dissolved in December 2000, [3] [4] achieved prominence as the key subject of a March 20, 2002, raid by federal agents, as a part of Operation Green Quest. The raid was carried out over suspicions by the U.S. Treasury Department that the group was laundering money for Al Qaeda or other terrorist groups. [5] In 2003, they were accused of large scale money laundering for terrorist entities. [2]

Contents

Background

The Foundation's overseas origins date to the 1970s. The origins began with a group of Muslim scholars, businessmen, and scientists from the Middle East and Asia who moved to the U.S. in the 1980s. The network began with the incorporation of the SAAR Foundation, Inc., in Herndon, Virginia, as a 501(c)(3) non-profit in July 1983. The parent corporation dissolved in 2000 and was replaced by the Safa Trust, which was run by many of the same group of individuals. SAAR was named after the patriarch of the wealthy Saudi Arabian al-Rajhi family, who are also the foundation's largest donors. [2]

Federal investigations allege that SAAR makes up a network of up to one hundred non-profit and for-profit organizations with known ties to radical Islamist groups. Many of these organizations shared the same address in Virginia, which led investigators to claim that many of the organizations were "phantom" entities engaged in reverse money-laundering. [2] Special Agent David Kane of the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement testified in a 2003 affidavit that the most likely cause for the group's presence was "to conceal support for terrorism". [2] Seventy percent of the contributions to SAAR charities came from within the SAAR network. Millions of dollars ended up in an offshore bank account in the Bahamas and the Isle of Man making them difficult to trace. Traced funds arrived at financial institutions designated by the U.S. Treasury as financial conduits for terrorist groups like Al Taqwa Bank and Akida Bank Private, LTD. Other funds were traced to a group, WISE, linked to the organization Palestinian Islamic Jihad. [2]

In the years that followed the investigation, SAAR was fined "more than $500,000" for contempt of court for failing to turn over documents subpoenaed by the grand jury investigation. [6] The fines have not been paid, however, because the SAAR Foundation no longer has assets in its name in the U.S. [6]

Federal investigation

As part of Operation Green Quest, a multiagency task force led by the U.S. Customs and U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement, SAAR was investigated in an investigation into suspected terror financing entities. Their mission was focused on closing down illicit financial systems and repairing vulnerable and legitimate systems that could be used to raise funds for terrorists. On March 20, 2002, federal agents raided 14 interlocking business entities in Herndon, Virginia, associated with the SAAR Foundation looking for ties to the Al Taqwa Bank and the Muslim Brotherhood. Over 500 boxes of files and computer files were confiscated, filling seven trucks. Investigations from Operation Green Quest led to seventy indictments and $33 million in seized funds by 2003. [2]

Notable personnel

Related Research Articles

The Benevolence International Foundation (BIF) was a purported nonprofit charitable trust based in Saudi Arabia. It was determined to be a front for terrorist group Al-Qaeda and was banned by the United Nations Security Council Committee 1267 and the US Department of the Treasury in November 2002. The BIF's chief executive officer Enaam Arnaout began serving a ten-year sentence in 2003 after pleading guilty for racketeering in a U.S. federal court.

Mohammed Jamal Khalifa

Mohammed Jamal Khalifa (1 February 1957 – 31 January 2007) was a Saudi businessman from Jeddah who married one of Osama bin Laden's sisters. He has been accused of funding terror plots and groups in the Philippines in the 1990s while head of the International Islamic Relief Organization branch there. He was murdered in Madagascar in 2007.

al-Haramain Foundation

Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation (AHIF) was a charity foundation, based in Saudi Arabia. Under various names it had branches in Afghanistan, Albania, Bangladesh, Bosnia, Comoros, Ethiopia, India, Kenya, Malaysia, the Netherlands, Nigeria, Pakistan, Somalia, Tanzania, and the United States, and "at its height" raised between $40 and $50 million a year in contributions worldwide. While most of the foundation's funds went to feed poor Muslims around the world, a small percentage went to Al-Qaeda, and that money was "a major source of funds" for the terrorist group. In 2003, Saudi authorities ordered Al-Haramain to shut down all overseas branches, and by 2004 Saudi authorities had dissolved Al-Haramain. However, US intelligence officials believed it had reopened branches under new names.

The Maktab al-Khidamat, also Maktab Khadamāt al-Mujāhidīn al-'Arab, also known as the Afghan Services Bureau, was founded in 1984 by Abdullah Azzam, Wa'el Hamza Julaidan, Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri to raise funds and recruit foreign mujahidin for the war against the Soviets in Afghanistan. MAK became the forerunner to al-Qaeda and was instrumental in creating the fundraising and recruitment network that benefited Al-Qaeda during the 1990s.

Al-Barakat, or Al-Barakaat, which means "Blessings" in Arabic, is a group of companies established in 1987 in Somalia. The firm is involved in the modern form of hawala, an informal value transfer system and remittance method. By 2001, Al-Barakat had outlets in 40 countries, and was the country's largest private employer. It handled about $140 million USD a year from the Somali diaspora, and also offered phone and internet services.

The International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT) is a privately held non-profit organization. It was founded in 1981 in Pennsylvania, and is headquartered in Herndon, Virginia, in the suburbs of Washington, DC. Their main interest is carrying out evidence-based research in advancing education in Muslim societies and the dissemination of this research through publication and translation, teaching, policy recommendations, and strategic engagements all with "the objectives of revival and reform of Islamic thought." The International Institute of Islamic Thought was established as a non-profit 501(c)(3) non-denominational organization in the United States in 1981. The headquarters are in Herndon, Virginia.

Al-Rajhi Bank Largest Islamic bank in the world by capital based in Saudi Arabia

The Al Rajhi Bank is a Saudi Arabian bank and the world's largest Islamic bank by capital based on 2015 data.

Terrorism financing

Terrorism financing is the provision of funds or providing financial support to individual terrorists or non-state actors.

The Global Relief Foundation (GRF), also known as Foundation Secours Mondial (FSM), was an Islamic charity based in Bridgeview, Illinois, until it was raided and shut down on December 14, 2001, and listed among the "Designated Charities and Potential Fundraising Front Organizations for Foreign Terrorist Organizations" ("DCPFFOFTO") by the United States Treasury Department in 2002. According to the US Treasury, "The Global Relief Foundation (GRF) … and its officers and directors have connections to, and have provided support for and assistance to, Osama bin Laden (OBL), al Qaeda (aQ), and other known terrorist groups (OKTG)." It was one of the few organizations registered with the Taliban.

The Al Taqwa Bank is a financial institution incorporated in 1988. It is based out of The Bahamas, Switzerland, and Liechtenstein. The Bank was accused by the United States of having links to Islamist terror organizations, alleging that it was a major source of funds for the operations of Osama bin Laden and his associates. Al Taqwa bank was subsequently placed on a list of entities and individuals associated with Al Qaeda that is maintained by the UN Security Council. On August 2, 2010, the bank was removed from the list. None of the key individuals affiliated with the bank have ever been charged of any crime, whether by the United States or any other government.

Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula Militant Sunni Islamist and Islamic terrorist organization

Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, abbreviated as AQAP, also known as Ansar al-Sharia in Yemen, is a militant Sunni Islamist terrorist group primarily active in Yemen and Saudi Arabia that is part of the al-Qaeda network. It is considered the most active of al-Qaeda's branches that emerged after the weakening of central leadership. The U.S. government believes AQAP to be the most dangerous al-Qaeda branch. The group established an emirate during the 2011 Yemeni Revolution, which waned in power after foreign interventions in the subsequent Yemeni Civil War.

The "Golden Chain" is a list of names that was seized in March 2002 in a raid by Bosnian police of the premises of the Benevolence International Foundation in Sarajevo. The Golden Chain is a list of sponsors of Al-Qaeda.

Operation Green Quest was a U.S. interagency investigative unit formed in October 2001 after the September 11 attacks. Sponsored by the United States Customs Service, it was concerned with the surveillance and interdiction of terrorist financing sources. It was disbanded in June 2003 pursuant to an agreement between the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice.

Yassin Kadi Saudi Arabian businessman

Yassin Abdullah Kadi is a Saudi Arabian businessman. A multi-millionaire from Jeddah, Kadi trained as an architect in Chicago, Illinois. He is the son-in-law of Sheikh Ahmed Salah Jamjoom, a former Saudi Arabian government minister with close ties to the Saudi royal family.

InfoCom Corporation was an American web hosting service company founded by five brothers in 1992. It was initially based in Dallas, Texas, and before moving to Richardson, Texas. The company was raided on 5 September 2001 and its bank account frozen. Criminal charges were brought on 18 December 2002. On October 13, 2005 InfoCom Corporation was sentenced to two years’ probation resulting in it being shut down due to charges of conspiracy to violate the Export Administration Regulations and the Libyan Sanctions Regulations. Its founding members were also convicted on charges of false statements, money laundering and fundraising on behalf of the U.S.- terrorist designated Hamas.

The Union of Good, also known as the Charity Coalition, is an umbrella organization consisting of over 50 Islamic charities and funds which funnel money to organizations belonging to Hamas, which currently rules the territory of the Gaza Strip. Hamas, which characterizes itself as an "Islamic resistance movement against Israeli occupation" is also on the US State Department list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations.

Qatar and state-sponsored terrorism

Qatar has been accused of allowing terror financiers to operate within its borders, which has been one of the justifications for the Qatar diplomatic crisis that started in 2017 and ended in 2021. In 2014, David S. Cohen, then Under Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, accused Qatari authorities of allowing financiers who were on international blacklists to live freely in the country: "There are U.S.- and UN-designated terrorist financiers in Qatar that have not been acted against under Qatari law." Accusations come from a wide variety of sources including intelligence reports, government officials, and journalists.

Al-Aqsa Islamic Bank was established by Hamas in the Palestinian territories in 1997 to serve as the organization's financial arm. The bank laundered and transferred money on behalf of U.S.-terrorist designated Hamas until its assets were frozen by the U.S. authorities in 2001. The bank's licence was revoked in 2010.

Soliman S. Biheiri is an Egyptian citizen who moved to the United States in 1985. He established there Bait ul-Mal Incorporated (BMI), an Islamic investment firm that mostly fundraised on behalf of the U.S. terrorist designated Hamas. In 2005, Biheiri was sentenced to 13 months and one day in prison for terrorism and fraud.

Terrorism in the United Arab Emirates

Terrorism in the United Arab Emirates describes the terrorist attacks in the United Arab Emirates, as well as steps taken by the Emirati government to counter the threat of terrorism. Although terrorist attacks are rare, the UAE has been listed as a place used by investors to raise funds to support militants in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the financing of the September 11 attacks. Businesses based in the UAE have been implicated in the funding of the Taliban and the Haqqani network. In the 72nd session of the UN General assembly in New York, UAE foreign minister Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan affirmed the United Arab Emirates policy of zero tolerance towards terrorism financing.

References

  1. ↑ "SAAR Foundation". www.historycommons.org.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Emerson, Steven (2006). Jihad Incorporated: A Guide to Militant Islam in the US. Prometheus Books. ISBN   9781615920556.
  3. ↑ A NATION CHALLENGED: THE INVESTIGATION; U.S. Examines Donations Of 2 Saudis to Determine If They Aided Terrorism, The New York Times, March 25, 2002
  4. ↑ A Court Sheds New Light on Terror Probe, The New York Sun, March 24, 2008
  5. ↑ Miller, Judith (21 March 2002). "A NATION CHALLENGED: THE MONEY TRAIL; Raids Seek Evidence of Money-Laundering". The New York Times. Retrieved 5 February 2016.
  6. 1 2 Goldstein, Joseph (24 March 2008). "A Court Sheds New Light on Terror Probe". New York Sun. Retrieved 5 February 2016.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.