The government on Wednesday informed the National Assembly that the terrorists' funds seized and confiscated by the law enforcement agencies (LEAs) registered a tremendous growth of 10,000 percent over the period of last one-and-a-half-year.
In a written reply to a question, Federal Minister for Interior Brig Ijaz Shah (retd) said that the government formulated and implemented the first ever policy on financial investigations, including investigations into cases of terrorism financing, as well as parallel financial investigation acts of terrorism to see the TF link.
"This policy was duly approved by Prime Minister Imran Khan before being implemented. As a result, the financial investigations and prosecutions in the country have registered a phenomenal growth since June 2018," he added.
This growth stands at present at 540%, he said, adding as a result, the convictions in terrorism financing cases in Pakistan have registered a growth of 480% during the last one-and-a-half-year.
He said that to make NACTA fully functional the intelligence wing has been made functional by providing needed human resources.
He said that threat alerts are forwarded to all concerned LEAs and intelligence agencies for timely information and response.
In 2018, 664 threat alerts were issued while in 2019, 559 threat alerts were issued till 25th November 2019.
He said that NACTA CT helpline 1717 is operative round the clock and 10 telephone lines are dedicated for receiving complaints/ information about incidents related to terrorism and hate speeches. The information received is immediately disseminated to LEAs for timely response. An average 1,900 call are received daily. Details of 2019 included: 597 actionable calls, registration of 21 FIRs, 474counterterrorism call, and 123 calls were related to hate speech.
The NACTA is a member of the National Coordination Committee on FATF, headed by the minister for finance. "Pakistan's FATF Action Plan has four immediate outcomes including IO-3, IO-8, and IO-10. The NACTA is lead for IO-9. As IO-9 lead, NACTA is making all-out efforts to combat terrorism financing in the country in line with the international standards contained in the FATF 40 recommendations," he said.
Detailing about the NACTA's achievements in CFT/FATF matters, he said some of the key achievements of NACTA are in the field of CFT and on matters related to Financial Action Task Force (FATF).
He said that the government carried out the first comprehensive Terrorism Financing Risk Assessment of its financial and legal system, studying all the terrorist organizations operating in the country, and the nature and extent of the TF risk they were posing.
The assessment also focused on the sources and channels used for terrorism financing. A) Sources: i) donations; ii) skins/hides collection; iii) charity and; iv) crime (kidnapping for ransom, robbery, narcotics and cash smuggling); B) channels: i) banking; ii) Hawala; iii) NPOs and; iv) cash movement.
"The engagement of international CFT experts, NACTA and Ministry of Interior with the assistance of international donors, Ministry of Finance, the SBP and SECP have also engaged expertise of international experts on CFT and AML," he
said.