Insight Intelligence June / August Roundup
Our news and analysis from summer 2023
Hello everyone! It’s September now, if you can believe it, which always feels like the start of a new year. Let’s kick things off with a roundup of everything that’s happened at Insight Intelligence over the summer. This is your chance to get caught up. And I want to wish a warm welcome to our new subscribers: we are very close to 4,400! I’d love to break the 5k mark by the end of the year, so please share this newsletter with friends and colleagues.
New Analysis
We published a number of new analyses on illicit financing, international security, and terrorism over the last couple of months, including a group profile on Blood & Honour and a deep-dive into ISIL’s East Africa network following the death of al-Sudani.
We also analyzed the financing of terrorism through prepaid cards, looked at terrorist financing in the Maldives (using crypto!), examined how the Sousse beach attack, the London Truck attack, and the Whitmer kidnapping plot were financed, and had a think about how sanctions are applied in Canada. We also covered Canada’s first “foreign interference” arrest.
Opinion
I also wrote a quick oped for the Globe and Mail about how Canada needs a more coherent and consistent policy on how we charge for terrorism, how preventing ideologically-motivated terrorism should be the RCMP’s #1 CT priority, and provided commentary on Canada’s proposed changes to the illicit financing framework.
Updates
We also periodically update some of our past analyses — this is a way to track changes and stay on top of developments in our field. This month we focused on the Lafarge case of ISIL / Al Nusra Front financing:
I also updated our analysis on ISIL-Khorosan Province financing. This is definitely an issue we’re keeping a close watch on.
We also write up terrorist financing news (June) from around the world, and provide short summaries of all the stories we’ve found over the course of a month (or two…):
Launches
In August, we launched our report on how January 6th was financed. It’s part of a package that we’ve released that includes the full downloadable report, as well as a webinar. You can buy access to it here, and a little tip: paid Insight Intelligence subscribers get a 50% off code. We also launched our case study library to complement our terrorist financing analysis course. It’s included in the course, or you can purchase access to it separately.
Coming up
This month, we have a full schedule of news and analysis to share with you. I’ve also been hard at work on our new course offering on financial intelligence and investigations, which we hope to launch before the end of 2023.
Thanks for caring about illicit financing!