Money Laundering and Terrorism Financing through Hawala Money Transfer Operators investigates the historical, contemporary, and future orientations of the hawala system as it exists at the nexus of national security policy and practice, money laundering, and the financing of terrorism and criminal activity.

Part 1: MTOs, States, and Hawala.- Chapter 1: Introduction: Co-opting Hawala.- Chapter 2: Hawala and Financing Terrorism Since 9/11: A Literature Review.- Chapter 3: Anti-Money Laundering Objectives and Cycles: Tracking Criminal Cash.- Chapter 4: Regulating Hawala: The Role of International Financial Institutions.- Chapter 5: Banking on Trust: Why Hawala Is Ineffective in Raising Financial Literacy.- Chapter 6: Hawala and Islamic Jurisprudence: Money Transfers, Charities, and (Islamist) Terror Networks.- Part II: Country cases.- Chapter 7: Walking a Precarious Ledge: The Nexus between Hawala, Money Laundering, and Terror Financing in Pakistan.- Chapter 8: Dark Money: Hawala Transactions in Afghanistan.- Chapter 9: Unveiling the Parallel Economy: Policing and Regulating India’s Hawala Menace.- Chapter 10: Terror Financing Networks Redux: Combating Hawala Exploitation and Extremism in Bangladesh.- Chapter 11: Balancing on a Knife’s Edge: The Hawala/Undiyal Transfer Mechanisms, Terror Financing, and Sri Lanka’s Debt Vulnerabilities.- Chapter 12: Good Money, Bad Money: The Financial Mosaic of Hawala in Indonesia.- Chapter 13: Curbing Illicit Flows: A Focus on Hawala and Malaysia.- Chapter 14: Shady Business: The Dilemma of the Unrecognised Hawala Economy in the Philippines.- Chapter 15: A Matter of Strict Policy: Strengthening Hawala Regulations in the United Arab Emirates.- Chapter 16: Agents of Hawalaland: Crime-Enabled Hawala Operations in Somalia.- Chapter 17: Feeding the Crime-Terror Nexus: ‘Hawala and Other Similar Service Providers’ in the European Union.- Chapter 18: A Minor Problem of National Security: Hawala, Terrorist Networks, and Proxy Agents in the United States.- Chapter 19: Conclusion: Hawala and the War on Illicit Cash.

Money Laundering and Terrorism Financing through Hawala Money Transfer Operators investigates the historical, contemporary, and future orientations of the hawala system as it exists at the nexus of national security policy and practice, money laundering, and the financing of terrorism and criminal activity. It examines the emerging connections between criminal and terrorist organisations that aim to exploit this time-honoured system for their unlawful and violent intentions, states, and financial systems. The book offers a thorough examination of a topic that is frequently framed and seen as a major security threat on a local, national, and international scale. Inconsistent state regulations, inadequate international regulatory oversight, and misinformed policy all contribute to the complexity of the issue. It integrates empirical and substantive data and analyses with conceptual approaches to the hawala informal remittance system and its exploitation by criminal and terrorist actors. Scott N. Romaniuk is a research fellow at the Corvinus Centre for Contemporary Asia Studies (CAS) within the Corvinus Institute for Advanced Studies (CIAS) at Corvinus University of Budapest, Hungary, and a senior research affiliate with the Canadian Network for Research on Terrorism, Security and Society (TSAS). Amparo Pamela Fabe is a visiting fellow at the International Centre of Security and Policing at the University of South Wales. She is an anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing expert and the Philippine National Police Representative to the ASEAN Senior Officials’ Meeting on Transnational Crime (SOMTC) and Women, Peace, and Security. Joan Andrea Toledo is a counterterrorism expert for the Armed Forces of the Philippines. She is also an investigative journalist, covering child soldiers, women involved in terrorism, and jihadi organisations. Animesh Roul is the executive director of the New Delhi-based policy research group, Society for the Study of Peace and Conflict. He specialises in counterterrorism, radical Islam, terror financing, and armed conflict and violence in South Asia. Debasish Nandy is an associate professor and head of the Department of Political Science at Kazi Nazrul University, India. He is the coordinator of the Centre for Studies of South and South-East Asian Societies at the same university.

Contains interdisciplinary research at the intersection of hawala, criminal and terror financing, and national security Presents research analysis from an apolitical, unbiased, and neutral perspective Unravels the informal hawala system through the presentation of several country case studies