How ISIS get money on refugees

1. HUMAN TRAFFICKING
THE ISLAMIC STATE’S WORTHY BUSINESS
COL. BESENYŐ JÁNOS, PHD.2016.

2. CONTENT
1. Current situation of the Islamic State
2. Operations inside Syria and Iraq
3. Global spillover
4. Three main motivators:
• Financial benefits
• Social reasons
• Military tool
5. Conclusion, a vision for the future

3. THE ISLAMIC STATE
 „The Islamic State”:
 1999: Abu Musab al-Zarqawi: Jama'at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad  Al-Qaida links
 Interrupting the organizational connections with Al-Qaida, greater independency, expansion.
 2010: Abu Bakr al-Baghdadí – ISIL, (DAESH), ISLAMIC STATE (IS)
 Radical Wahhabist/Salafist interpretation of Sunni Islam
 Spillover of the Syrian civil war (2011- ; Bashar al-Assad, rebel groups)
 Calls for an international jihad
 Influence in a huge variety of illegal transactions (human trafficking)
 International coalition and military intervention against the organization (2014-,
USA, RUS engagement)
 Air strikes, boots on the ground.
 Battle for Falluja, battle for Mosul (2016.05.)
 Territory shrinks

4. THE INTERNATIONAL COALITION’S AIR-
STRIKES IN 2015
Source: BBC (2016):Islamic State group: Crisis in seven charts, URL: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-27838034, date of access: 2016.05.30.

5. DIRECT AREA OF OPERATIONS
 Syria, Iraq, Libya
 Establishing the „caliphate”
 Hard-power influence
 Limited social- and public administration services
 Sharía law, fundamentalist ideology
 Training camps
 Human rights abuses
 Violence, persecution of „kafirs” (Yazidi, Christian minority and other non-
believers)
 Diverse sources of income (decreased to $56 million/year 2016 March)
 Oil, agricultural trade
 Black-market transactions
 Income from illegal, military operations
 Human trafficking
 …

6. GLOBAL THREATS
 Indirect influence in a greater scale of territories
 Spillover-effect
 Worldwide propaganda, recruitment
 Humanitarian considerations
 Illegal trade and financial transactions (donors)
 Active contact with forward bases of fundamentalism in the European region (Balkans)
 Terrorist attacks (2015. November – Paris, 2016. March – Brussels)
 Push factor for migrant flow
 Connections with human-traffickers: uncontrolled wave of immigrants may provide
opportunity for infiltration

7. HUMAN TRAFFICKING – FINANCIAL
BENEFITS
 Income required for:
 Maintaining the moderate standard of living
 Providing basic social services
 Planning and executing the operation of the terrorist organization
 Monthly payment between $300 and up to $2,000 per jihadists
 Expanding international system for illegal trade and smuggling.  regular income from
people, money, black-market items or artifacts.
 Smuggler groups of migratory routes are linked up with the terrorist organization
 Value of human smuggling in Libya: $20m (2010)  $323m (2014)
 Route from Syria to Turkey could reach over $8000 for an individual,
 Some smugglers may also charge $400 to $500 to "insure" migrants against abductions.
 Approximately $320m yearly income for the terrorist organization.
 Hardly-detectable, routes and methods are diverse and constantly adapting  secured
way of income with minimal risks for the organization.

8. MAIN MIGRATORY ROUTES
Source: Frontex (2016): Migratory routes map, URL: http://frontex.europa.eu/trends-and-routes/migratory-routes-map/, date of access: 2016.05.30.

9.  Distracting and destabilizing the local communities – war on „kafirs” – cleansing
and unifying society
 Trafficking highly intimidates population, generates fear and contributes to the
push-factors of migration (Nigeria or Iraq)
 Enslavement and rape of women (2014: 2500 civilians)
 Historical roots
 Meet the jihadists’ needs
 Sale centers: Syria, Iraq, Turkey (Antep).
 Trafficking from the West to Syria – recruitment of foreign fighters
 Women: forced marriages, ideological persuasion: holy war, honored to be a mother of a
future jihadist.
 Trafficking from Syria to the West:
 The possibilities of the migrant flow – infiltration, propaganda, generating fear.
HUMAN TRAFFICKING – SOCIETAL
REASONS

10. WOMEN PRICELIST
Source: The Mirror Post (2016): ISIS executes 19 teenage girls for refusing to have sex with fighters, URL: http://www.themirrorpost.com/2015/08/isis-executes-19-teenage-girls-
for.html, date of access: 2016.05.30.

11.  From 2011 to 2015:
 7.6 million Syrians internally displaced
 4 million refugees.
 Followers infiltrated in the unchecked crowd of migrants.
 Recent months terrorist attacks and the known expansion of insurgencies.
 European radical units’ reassurance, active connections (Bosnia, Belgium)
 Al Dabiq: ideological legitimacy
 Enhances determination and increases morale.
 Eliminating the opponents’ human capabilities:
 2014. July 9.: 60 former Iraqi Army officers from were kidnapped to pre-empt a potential rebel strike in
Mosul.
 Collecting and recruiting children:
 Recruiting to training camps, front lines.
 Syrian army, pro-government militias, opposition forces and the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD)
are also involved in similar processes. (HUMINT)
HUMAN TRAFFICKING – A WEAPON OF
WAR

12. CONCLUSION
 Multidimensional support for radical organizations.
 Diverse and extensive network
 Smuggling groups in Libya and Turkey: from West to Syria, from Syria to the West
 Routes dynamically adapting for the current changes
 A tripartite threat:
 It generates income for both the linked organized crime groups and indirectly for the Islamic
State.
 It improves morale among jihadists, ideologically legitimates actions against its enemies,
thereby human trafficking improves the propaganda. (sex trafficking)
 By human trafficking, the terrorist organization’s military actions should be intensified and
capabilities should be further increased. (enemies’ kidnapping, recruitment)
 Tracking and elimination of these routes requires a complex counter-trafficking
procedure.

13. BIOGRAPHY
 János Besenyő: Not the invention of ISIS: Terrorists among
immigrants, Journal of Security and Sustainability Issues,
(2015) Volume5, Number 1, pp. 5–20. DOI:
http://dx.doi.org/10.9770/jssi.2015.5.1(1)
 János Besenyő: Security preconditions: Understanding
migratory routes, Journal of Security and Sustainability
Issues, (2016, September) Volume 6, Number 1, pp. 5–26.
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.9770/jssi.2016.6.1(1)
 Besenyő János: Low-cost attacks, unnoticable plots?
Overview on the economical character of current terrorism,
STRATEGIC IMPACT (ROMANIA) (ISSN: 1841-5784)
(eISSN: 1824-9904) 62/2017: (Issue No. 1) pp. 83-100.
(2017), https://www.ceeol.com/search/article-detail?
id=531307

14. THANK YOU FOR YOUR
ATTENTION!
COL. BESENYŐ JÁNOS, PHD.2016.