“Antiquities Coalition sounds the alarm”: Testimony before House Financial Services Committee by Juan Zarate
June 28, 2016
“Antiquities Coalition sounds the alarm”: Testimony before House Financial Services Committee by Juan Zarate
On June 23, Juan Zarate, a terrorist financing expert and former federal prosecutor, testified before the House Financial Services Committee on “The Next Terrorist Financiers”: Stopping Them Before They Start. His remarks underscored “the need to focus on terrorist financing and illicit finance”—including cultural racketeering by Daesh (also known as ISIS) in Iraq and Syria. Mr. Zarate recommended that:
… to combat the looting of antiquities for profit by ISIS, the United States should help should help empower and enlist a whole set of actors and networks already committed to the preservation of peoples, texts, and culture—including leading archaeologists, anthropologists, universities, heritage trusts, museums, libraries, and even activist celebrities.The Antiquities Coalition, UNESCO, and other organizations have already sounded the alarm, and the U.S. should leverage their insights, networks, and activism to stem the flow of funds to ISIS from this trade.
Mr. Zarate is now Chairman and Senior Counselor of the Center on Sanctions and Illicit Finance at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD). Before joining the FDD, from 2005 to 2009 during the George W. Bush administration, he served as the Deputy Assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Advisor for Combatting Terrorism. As such he was responsible for developing and implementing all aspects of the U.S. government’s counterterrorism strategy, as well as U.S. strategy to address transnational threats such as organized crime.
You can read Mr. Zarate’s full testimony here.