ISIS-West Africa - Financial Disruption

About

Rewards for Justice is offering a reward of up to $10 million for information leading to the disruption of the financial mechanisms of the terrorist organization ISIS-West Africa (ISIS-WA).

Based primarily in northeastern Nigeria, the group conducts its terrorist operations throughout the Lake Chad Basin region of Cameroon, Chad, Niger, and Nigeria. ISIS-WA is believed to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars per month by extorting local agricultural businesses and fishing operations and kidnapping and ransoming civilians. ISIS-WA also relies on donations and financial facilitation from benefactors around the world and is believed to have received financial support from ISIS core leadership via cash couriers, hawala networks, virtual currency, and financial institutions.

The U.S. Department of State is offering a reward for information leading to the disruption of ISIS-WA’s revenue sources and key financial facilitation mechanisms, to include:

• Financial contributions to ISIS-WA by donors and financial facilitators,
• Significant transactions by financial institutions and exchange houses benefiting ISIS-WA,
• Businesses or investments owned or controlled by ISIS-WA or its financiers,
• Front companies tied to ISIS-WA or engaged in financial transactions on its behalf,
• Criminal schemes involving ISIS-WA members and supporters who are financially benefiting the organization,
• Illicit financial schemes of ISIS-WA,
• Business between formal financial institutions and ISIS-WA, or
• Transfers of funding and materiel by or to ISIS-WA operatives.

ISIS-WA formed in 2015, when ISIS publicly accepted a pledge of allegiance from the Nigeria-based terrorist group Boko Haram, establishing it as ISIS-WA. ISIS-WA conducts terrorist and other illicit activities in West Africa, rejects national borders, and seeks to discredit regional governments and eventually replace them with an ISIS-style state. As one of ISIS’s largest and most powerful regional branches, ISIS-WA conducts kidnappings and attacks against local government officials, security forces, and civilians using small arms, captured military equipment, IEDs (including person-borne, vehicle-borne, animal-borne, and implanted), and ambushes. ISIS-WA controls broad swaths of territory and has displaced millions of people in the region.

On February 28, 2018, the U.S. Department of State designated ISIS-WA as a Foreign Terrorist Organization under section 219 of the Immigration and Nationality Act, as amended. Previously, on February 27, 2018, the Department of State designated ISIS-WA as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist pursuant to Executive Order 13224, as amended. As a result, all of ISIS-WA’s property, and interests in property, subject to U.S. jurisdiction are blocked, and U.S. persons are generally prohibited from engaging in any transactions with ISIS-WA. It is a crime to knowingly provide, or to attempt or conspire to provide, material support or resources to ISIS-WA.