Blood Money
How Criminals, Militias, Rebels, and Warlords Finance ViolenceIt is’convenient’to think that bad guys are drumming up money for their activities far away and in shady back alleys, but the violent non-state actors (VNSAs) of the world are’hiding in plain sight. They peddle’knockoff sneakers, pass the hat at ethnic festivals, take’a cut of untaxed booze sales,’swindle’senior citizens with bogus phone calls about needing bail in Mexico,’and run money through mainstream banks’to buy’up rental properties (just to name a few). On a grand scale, their behavior erodes rule of law, creates moral injuries from corruption,’and emboldens bad actors to steal and back violent tactics with impunity. Blood Money analyzes’the ways in which VNSAs find money for their operations and sustainment, from controlling a valuable commodity to harnessing the grievances of a networked diaspora, and’it looks at’the channels through which they can flip the positives of globalization into flat, fast, and’frictionless’movement of people, funds,’and materials needed to terrorize and coerce their opponents.’Author’Margaret Sankey highlights’the mundane and everyday nature of these tactics, occurring under our noses online, in legitimate marketplaces,’and with the aegis of intelligence services and national governments. While reforms attempt to curtail these options, their utility and’efficacy’as tools of finance’have proved’inadequate’for’sovereign’states.’VNSAs”defiance of rules’and their capable adaptation and innovation’make them extremely difficult to pin down or prosecute. Many’security publications stress legislation and enforcement or frame illicit finance as a military or police problem. With’Blood Money,’Sankey points’out’the’many’ways VNSAs evade law’enforcement,’and’she’offers options for involving consumers and activists in exercising agency and choices’in how they apply their money and where it goes.’Blood Money’also’provides’context for whole-of-government approaches to attacking underlying supports for illicit financing channels.’How these groups finance themselves is key to understanding how they function and what actions might be taken to’derail their plans or dismantle their structure. ISBN: 9781682474372, 1682474372
