With the support of Germany, UNITAD is undertaking investigations into the financial aspects of ISIS crimes and the financial mechanisms that either supported or enabled perpetrators to profit from ISIS’s grave violations of international humanitarian law and international human rights law. Accountability for the crimes committed by ISIS must include identifying and prosecuting those who enabled and profited from these crimes.
This project, now in its second phase, will continue to support the work of UNITAD in investigating those who facilitated ISIS through financial support, and who may be culpable for international crimes. In support of this effort, UNITAD has established a dedicated team possessing specialized expertise and focus, in order to support its ongoing investigations. This team is also working with Iraqi national authorities in order to strengthen their capacity to collect and analyze information relevant to the financing of ISIS crimes.
Through this project, UNITAD will continue to focus on how ISIS developed a complex and lucrative financial system to enable its activities and push revenue to its command structure and its fighters. ISIS profited from various illicit activities entrenched in systemic campaigns of terror and violence. It was able to produce vast revenues, often through coercion (extortion), intimidation, and through fostering an atmosphere of fear. It is therefore imperative to investigate the financing of ISIS’s criminal activity; notably, the enslavement of minorities, the illegal extraction of natural resources, and the proceeds derived from the plundering and pillaging of property and cultural heritage. The violence committed by ISIS generated an environment where significant illicit profits were made, used, and sent to offshore beneficiaries. Profit and financial gain inextricably ran in tandem to ISIS’s ideology, and was a fundamental aspect of their common plan.
Thanks to the ongoing project Germany is funding, UNITAD has been able to strengthen its investigations by including the collection of evidence relating to the key financial facilitators that link to the international crimes committed by ISIS and the profits that were made during the peak of its violent campaign.
This project, now in its second phase, will continue to support the work of UNITAD in investigating those who facilitated ISIS through financial support, and who may be culpable for international crimes. In support of this effort, UNITAD has established a dedicated team possessing specialized expertise and focus, in order to support its ongoing investigations. This team is also working with Iraqi national authorities in order to strengthen their capacity to collect and analyze information relevant to the financing of ISIS crimes.
Through this project, UNITAD will continue to focus on how ISIS developed a complex and lucrative financial system to enable its activities and push revenue to its command structure and its fighters. ISIS profited from various illicit activities entrenched in systemic campaigns of terror and violence. It was able to produce vast revenues, often through coercion (extortion), intimidation, and through fostering an atmosphere of fear. It is therefore imperative to investigate the financing of ISIS’s criminal activity; notably, the enslavement of minorities, the illegal extraction of natural resources, and the proceeds derived from the plundering and pillaging of property and cultural heritage. The violence committed by ISIS generated an environment where significant illicit profits were made, used, and sent to offshore beneficiaries. Profit and financial gain inextricably ran in tandem to ISIS’s ideology, and was a fundamental aspect of their common plan.
Thanks to the ongoing project Germany is funding, UNITAD has been able to strengthen its investigations by including the collection of evidence relating to the key financial facilitators that link to the international crimes committed by ISIS and the profits that were made during the peak of its violent campaign.
