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hen Charles Darwin created his theory: “survival of the fittest,” no one would have thought that man-made threats would take precedence alongside biological and evolutionary threats. Overpopulation, poverty, war and political conflicts have all made human survival more challenging. Global terrorism is
another threat that has become more prominent in the 21st century, which is why international security has also evolved and gained much traction.
This article will discuss the paradigm shift in global terrorism and how new technology, particularly cryptocurrency, has changed terrorism and terrorist financing. With global terrorism becoming virtual and transitioning to crypto
terrorism, there will be new industry challenges as well as recommendations to contain them.
9/11 attacks
Terrorism has plagued the world for centuries; however, the 9/11 attacks escalated terrorism like never before. As John F. Murphy aptly noted in “The Impact of Terrorism on Globalization and Vice-Versa,” the “catastrophic terrorism” that occurred on September 11, 2001, finally gave this issue the attention it deserved.1 The attacks revealed the negligence of govern- ments across the globe on this issue, which were a catalyst in the war against terrorism. They also pushed focus toward addressing the traditional ways of supporting terrorism and terrorist financing (e.g., offshore banks, shell banks and entities, correspondent/private banking channels along with ancient mechanisms like hawala, bulk cash smuggling, the Black Market Peso Exchange and illegal remittance businesses). The efforts to combat terrorism and terrorist financing were enhanced with the enactment of the USA PATRIOT Act. This act changed the rules of the game on counterterrorism by focusing on developing strategies to combat this increasing threat.
However, these efforts were awaiting another disruption——the invention of bitcoin by Satoshi Nakamoto in January 2009. Since the first day he mined the genesis block of bitcoin, human civilization witnessed the most “disruptive technology” in recent centuries.
[ AML CHALLENGES ]
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