25 October 2001

Treasury Officials on Anti-Terrorism Finance Initiative

Two top-level U.S. Treasury Department officials have announced the launch of a multi-agency enforcement initiative aimed at denying terrorist groups access to the international financial system.

At an October 25 press conference Treasury Deputy Secretary Kenneth Dam said the initiative, called "Operation Green Quest," aims at hurting terrorists' fundraising capacity and breaking up their financial networks.

"The same talent pool and expertise that brought down Al Capone will now be dedicated to investigating Usama Bin Ladin and his terrorist network," Dam said.

Spearheading the initiative are enforcement officials from Treasury's Customs Service, Internal Revenue Service (IRS), Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) and Secret Service.

Treasury Under Secretary Jimmy Gurule said Operation Green Quest aims to dismantle al Quaida's and other terrorist groups' financing from charities and non-governmental organizations and from hawalas and other underground remittance systems.

Following are the Dam and Gurule texts as prepared for delivery:

Thank you for that kind introduction.

Today, I am pleased to announce that the same talent pool and expertise that brought down Al Capone will now be dedicated to investigating Usama Bin Ladin and his terrorist network.

We are here to announce the launch of "Operation Green Quest," a new multi-agency financial enforcement initiative.

This operation is made up of investigators with: Customs, IRS, Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, Office of Foreign Assets Control, and The Secret Service -- these entities globally recognized as the best and brightest financial investors in the world.

The goal of Operation Green Quest is to augment existing counter-terrorist efforts by bringing the full scope of the government's financial expertise to bear against systems, individuals, and organizations that serve as sources of terrorist funding.

Operation Green Quest has been created to serve Treasury's broader mission:

• To deny terrorist groups access to the international financial system, -- To impair the ability of terrorists to fundraise, and

• To expose, isolate and incapacitate the financial networks of terrorists.

Here a summary of Operation Green Quest's purpose:

The initiative will target current terrorist funding sources and identify possible future funding sources -- such as underground financial systems, illicit charities, and corrupt financial institutions -- which are among the entities that will be scrutinized as possible facilitators of terrorist funds.

Utilizing leads from these entities and information developed independently, Operation Green Quest will launch comprehensive investigations resulting in blocking orders, criminal prosecutions, civil and criminal forfeitures, and other actions.

With that, I am delighted to offer the podium to Undersecretary of the Treasury Jimmy Gurule.

Under Secretary Gurule's Remarks At The Launch Of "operation Green Quest"

Thank you for that kind introduction.

I am proud to join Deputy Secretary Dam and Customs Commission Bonner to announce "Operation Green Quest" -- the newest enforcement tool that Treasury, the nation's oldest law enforcement agency, will put to use in the war against terrorist financing.

It was just a few weeks ago that President Bush outlined our multi-faceted war against the Al-Qaida terrorist network. The President declared that "that starving the terrorists of funding" would be a primary objective of our war on terrorism.

The new war is a conflict "without battlefields and beachheads." In fact the first shot in this new war was fired from Treasury, in the form of the Executive Order freezing terrorist assets.

To support the Administration's Financial War on Terrorism, we have created this Anti-Terrorist Financing Task Force, named "Operation Green Quest."

It employs Enforcement's complement of investigative assets along with the Foreign Terrorist Asset Tracking Center's intelligence analysis to identify, disrupt, dismantle and ultimately "bankrupt" terrorist networks and their sources of funding.

Operation Green Quest's organization will maximize Treasury's investigative tools while permitting liaison and partnership with federal agencies and foreign countries to facilitate the widest range of effective actions against terrorists and their financiers, ranging from blocking bank accounts and freezing assets to federal criminal prosecution.

Let me take a moment to state clearly the goals of this initiative, and those goals are to:

• Identify, disrupt, and dismantle the financial operations of charities and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) associated with Usama Bin Laden (UBL) and al Qaida.

• Identify, disrupt, and dismantle the financial operations of terrorist organizations beyond al Qaida.

• Identify, infiltrate, and ultimately dismantle hawalas and other underground remittance systems used to provide funds to UBL, al Qaida, and other terrorist organizations.

• Develop individual and group targets for analysis by the Foreign Terrorist Asset Tracking Center (FTAT).

• Take preventative action by providing requesting nations technical assistance and support to requesting countries to identify accounts linked to terrorist networks.