Treasury task force to follow terrorists’ money trail

The Customs Service will lead a multi-agency effort to dismantle the financial support networks of terrorists, officials from Customs and the Treasury and Justice departments announced Thursday. The new anti-terrorism task force is aimed at cutting off funds to Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda followers. The project, dubbed Operation Green Quest, will pool the staff and resources of agencies housed in the Treasury Department, including Customs, the Internal Revenue Service, the Secret Service, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network and the Office of Foreign Assets Control. Treasury will not hire new agents for the task force, but will use its existing staff and resources, Customs Service Commissioner Robert C. Bonner told reporters at a press conference at Customs headquarters in Washington Thursday. According to Bonner, the new task force will not hinder other money-laundering investigations being conducted by Customs. "We are not ignoring our other duties with respect to drug trafficking or money-laundering," Bonner said. "We have sophisticated criminal investigators, and the time was right to put together this operational unit." Shortly after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, President Bush signed an executive order directing Treasury to freeze the assets of suspected terrorists and those supporting terrorist activities. Bonner said the new task force evolved from the work Customs has been doing with the FBI and other agencies involved in the investigation of terrorists. The task force, whose mission is to "expose, isolate and incapacitate" terrorist funding sources, will share information and work closely with the FBI and federal prosecutors from the Justice Department, according to Bonner and Michael Chertoff, assistant attorney general at Justice. A senior Customs official will serve as the director of the task force, and a senior IRS official will serve as deputy director. The task force will include 30 special agents on detail from participating agencies, two federal prosecutors, a senior FBI official, and the nearly 200 employees from Customs' El Dorado task force, which specializes in the investigation of money-laundering schemes and is based in New York. Bonner said regional task forces modeled after El Dorado will eventually be created across the country. El Dorado will be Operation Green Quest's "investigative muscle" when it comes to identifying and seizing the assets of terrorists and their allies, Bonner said. Operation Green Quest will identify and target several terrorist funding sources, including underground financial systems, illicit charities, corrupt financial institutions and activities involving cash smuggling and credit card fraud.