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Insight Intelligence: January 2023

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Insight Intelligence: January 2023

Jessica Davis
Feb 2
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Insight Intelligence: January 2023

newsletter.insightthreatintel.com

Hello, and a warm welcome to all the new subscribers to Insight Intelligence. We’re almost at 3,000 members! Please keep sharing these newsletters to help grow our community. Here’s a short summary with what we wrote about in January. There’s plenty more to come next week when we look at a new terrorist organization. Don’t forget: you can always leave me a comment on this post or in the chat about what you want to see next!

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This month, we focused on terrorist financing issues, but also delved into foreign interference and Wagner Group.

We started the month by looking at terrorist group financing in 2022 (organizational financing), and what we can expect for 2023. I have three main takeaways: the slowing adoption of crypto, the professionalization of group financing (particularly for the extreme right and ISIL provinces), and ongoing terrorist adaptation to counter-financing measures. You can read the full post here:

Insight Intelligence
Terrorist Group Financing: lessons from 2022 and a look ahead at 2023
Welcome to the first Insight Intelligence issue of 2023! In this piece, I put on my thinking cap and look ahead to what we can expect for the year in terrorist group financing, building on my analysis of trends and methods from 2022. This is only available for subscribers, so if you haven’t joined the hundreds of paying subscribers, you know what to do…
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3 months ago · 1 like · Jessica Davis

We then turned our attention to foreign interference in Canada, exploring the issue of those PRC “police stations”, the convoy, and potential electoral interference. This is an important read if you’re struggling with what exactly foreign interference is in Canada, or what we know so far. There’s been a fair bit of inflammatory reporting on the issue, so I try to get into the weeds here.

Insight Intelligence
Foreign Interference in Canada: Police Stations, the Convoy, and Electoral Interference
2022 was a hot year for foreign interference, or at least media coverage / speculation about foreign interference. Let’s unpack what we learned last year, with a special emphasis on both known knowns and unknown unknowns, and how we can think about, analyze, and counter foreign interference…
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2 months ago · 4 likes · Jessica Davis

I also took a look at the issue of terrorist financing “indicators”. I should warn you: I’m quite skeptical about their utility, given that terrorist financing is basically a small data problem. It doesn’t lend itself to rules / algorithms in the same way that money laundering does. In this piece I outline a few of the problems, and what we should be doing instead.

Insight Intelligence
What use are terrorist financing "indicators" ?
In December 2022, FINTRAC released an operational alert for terrorist activity financing. The purpose of these alerts is to support reporting entities in recognizing and reporting terrorist financing by providing indicators of terrorist activity financing. So let’s take a look and see what they’re saying about terrorist financing in Canada…
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2 months ago · 1 like · Jessica Davis

And as we do periodically, we published a short terrorist financing news roundup to keep you up to date on all the issues you might have missed in the world of terrorist financing.

Insight Intelligence
Terrorist Financing News Roundup
Welcome to the hundreds of new subscribers to Insight Intelligence this year! It’s great to see our community growing. For those of you who are new around here, I usually do a terrorist financing news roundup a few times a year. It’s been a while since I’ve done one of these roundups, so this will cover the last few months. Some highlights: lots of coun…
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2 months ago · 3 likes · 3 comments · Jessica Davis

We also published an analysis of the Jolo Church bombings from 2019. Lena wrote this article, but I’m credited with it because I put it into the newsletter. But it was another great article from her, and we’ll see more of her writing over the coming months!

Insight Intelligence
Jolo Church Bombing
Tomorrow, January 27, marks the 4-year anniversary of the Jolo Church Bombing. The attack at the Roman Catholic Cathedral of Our Lady of Mount Carmel in Jolo, Philippines claimed the lives of twenty people and further injured 102 others. The bombings were carried out by an Indonesian couple and organized by the…
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2 months ago · 1 like · Jessica Davis

And finally, I wrote a bit about Wagner Group. This Russian private military corporation is a source of a great deal of media in part because of their role in Ukraine, but also for their role in human rights abuses and atrocities in Africa. The group was also recently the focus of a vote from the Canadian House of Commons, calling for them to be designated as a terrorist entity. (Readers of Insight Intelligence will know that this isn’t how the listing process happens…)

Insight Intelligence
Wagner Group's Web of Companies
This week, Insight Intelligence is taking a look at Wagner Group - a Russian private military corporation that functions as a proxy for the Russian state. We’re looking at the group’s corporate structure, and whether Canada should list them as a terrorist entity. Read on for plenty of details, and some policy recommendations…
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2 months ago · 1 like · Jessica Davis

That’s all for now! As always, we appreciate the shares and likes, so keep ‘em coming!

 

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Insight Intelligence: January 2023

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