Greece arrests man with Iraqi passport stolen by IS – Plan to fight terror financing unveiled

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BRUSSELS, Feb 2, (Agencies): The European Union unveiled new measures to curb the financing of extremist groups Tuesday amid calls for more action following last year’s attacks in Paris. The proposals aim to track extremists as they move money or assets and limit their ability to raise funds by targeting their sources of income. “We want to improve the oversight of the many financial means used by terrorists, from cash and cultural artefacts to virtual currencies and anonymous pre-paid cards,” said European Commission Vice President Valdis Dombrovskis. The plan would oblige EU financial institutions to carry out compulsory checks on money flows from countries with doubtful records on money-laundering and extremist financing. It would boost intelligence-sharing among EU finance experts and give them more access to bank and payment data.

Virtual money like bitcoins would come under scrutiny when exchanged for real currencies, and limits would be imposed on anonymous transactions with pre-paid cash cards. EU agencies will also give support to countries in the Middle East and North Africa so that they can better fight the trafficking of cultural goods and artefacts which could help fund extremists.

French Finance Minister Michel Sapin welcomed the proposals. He had urged for more rapid EU action two weeks ago, more than a year after the issues were first raised. “What I want now is that they are rapidly put into effect,” he said in a statement. The EU’s executive Commission would be able to take immediate action on some measures, while others would have to be endorsed by member states. The full plan could be in force by the end of 2017.

An Iraqi Kurdish man has been arrested at Athens airport in possession of a passport known to have been among a haul of official documents stolen by Islamic State jihadists in Iraq, Greek police said Monday. The 37-year-old, who lives in Athens, was detained after flying in from the Turkish city of Istanbul on Sunday, police said in a statement.

The passport was one of a batch of blank travel documents seized by IS fighters during a raid in Nineveh province, and subsequently cancelled by Iraqi authorities, the statement added. Police did not say when the raid took place. Greek police routinely uncover false or illegal travel documents among migrants hoping to reach northern or western Europe. Security concerns in Europe are high after revelations that some of the jihadists behind the Paris terror attacks in November slipped into Europe by posing as refugees. On Sunday, Greek police said they had arrested two men with Swedish passports suspected of links to jihadist groups.

The suspects — a 28-year-old man of Bosnian descent and a 19-year-old of Yemeni origin — were carrying machetes, army uniforms and other combat paraphernalia and will be taken before a magistrate on Tuesday. The 28-year-old is known to European authorities for ties to jihadists, having been convicted in the past for planning a terrorist attack and was under surveillance by Swedish authorities, police sources said. A European Union report compiled in November said Greece was failing to properly register and fingerprint migrants, but Athens insists the situation has drastically improved with the arrival of additional EU staff and registering equipment. Greek leftist Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras on Monday said accusations of negligence based on a two-month report were “unfair”. “Now is the time to prove that Greece is meeting its obligations… we have decided to speed up procedures,” Tsipras told visiting European Migration Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos, who is also Greek

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