Terror Funds in India: Money Behind Mayhem

Dr V Balasubramaniyan · Dr SV Raghavan

Jul 2017 · Lancer Publishers LLC

About this ebook

 In the bulk of literature about terrorism in India, one vital aspect has seldom been studied or researched – money behind terrorism. However, the 2008 Mumbai attacks, commonly known as ‘26/11’ changed this to a great extent. In the immediate aftermath of the 26/11 attacks, the Indian government commissioned specialised agencies and enacted legislations in order to curb the money flow to terrorist and insurgent groups like LeT, IM, Maoists, and the ULFA.

Money pays for organisational costs such as indoctrination, recruitment, training, weaponisation, shelter, infrastructure, safe houses etc., and operational costs such as planning and executing terror attacks. These groups individually generate anywhere between ₹25 crore to ₹1000 crore annually to underwrite their expenses.

Is it really possible for these groups to generate such astronomical sums giving legitimate corporate houses a run for their money? Is it really possible to quantify their annual budgets? If so, how does LeT, IM, Maoists, and ULFA raise, move and store such phenomenal sums of money? Terror Funds in India: Money Behind Mayhem

Terror Funds in India: Money Behind Mayhem seeks to unravel this labyrinth of the financial networks of these groups individually and their money supply chain which has fuelled terrorism in India for decades. In an attempt, this book has captured the transition in the financial networks from traditional sources of funding such as state sponsorship to financial sources such as FICN, kidnapping for ransom, extortion, levy etc. And more importantly, new age financial sources using social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook etc. have also become a major source of revenue generation mechanism for these groups.

In this book, information gathered from open source data is matched with data gleaned from reports shown to the authors by top intelligence, police and government officials during informal interviews. Money Behind Mayhem

Money Behind Mayhem attempts to revise our thinking that the ideologies that once motivated the terrorists and insurgents are being overtaken by money and crime. In that sense, Money Behind Mayhem argues that there is only a very thin line differentiating these groups from criminal organisations. It argues that money is the jugular vein of the terrorists and insurgent groups, and unless this political economy is severed, efforts to fight terrorism in India will be futile.

About the author

Dr V Balasubramaniyan is a Doctoral Degree holder in Financing of Terrorism in India. His academic interests are terrorism financing and money laundering in India. Dr V Balasubramaniyan has around 10 years of banking experience and is also a certified Anti-Money laundering specialist. He has published numerous articles in prestigious international journals such as Journal of Financial Crime, Journal of Money Laundering Control, Defence against Terrorism Review, Indian Police Journal, and Journal of International Women Studies.

Dr SV Raghavan is the head of Defence and Strategic Studies Department, Gurunanak College, Chennai. He teaches national security, international relations, strategic thought. His research interests are national security, low-intensity conflicts and non-traditional threats. He has published numerous articles in prestigious international journals such as Journal of Money Laundering Control, Journal of International Women Studies, Aakrosh, and Agni.