On March 13, 2006 US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced the formation of Trade Transparency Units (TTUs)?in conjunction with local law enforcement and customs officials in Argentina , Brazil and Paraguay ?to combat trade-based money laundering and other financial crimes within the Tri-Border Area of South America (bounded by Puerto Iguazu, Argentina; Foz do Iguacu, Brazil; and Ciudad del Este, Paraguay). The creation of TTUs is a joint US initiative by the US Department of Homeland Security, the Department of State, and the Department of Treasury. ICE, acting as the largest investigative arm of DHS, will be tasked with assisting the three South American governments in identifying, targeting, and apprehending individuals and/or groups that engage in crimes related to trade-based money laundering. The formation of foreign-based TTUs is a relatively new technique to combat criminal money laundering rings, first utilized in 2005 when ICE established a TTU in Colombia .
TTUs employ sophisticated technology and mobilize various resources at hand to analyze and detect anomalies in international commerce. After identifying discrepancies in export/import data and other financial information that could be indicative of trade-based money laundering or other devious criminal behavior ICE agents in cooperation with Argentinean, Brazilian, and Paraguayan customs officials arrest and prosecute those responsible. In addition to investigating crimes related to trade-based money laundering, TTUs will also target alternative remittance systems, terrorist financing, contraband smuggling, tax evasion, and other crimes. To assist the TTUs, ICE operates a specialize database called the Data Analysis and Research Trade Transparency system (DARTT), which is “designed to detect and track money laundering, contraband smuggling and trade fraud,” according to Julie L. Myers, Assistant Secretary at DHS for ICE.
The Tri-Border Area has long been regarded as a feeding ground for nefarious Islamic extremist groups and other international criminal and terrorist organizations. Since 9/11 , the US government has increasingly pressured the governments of Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay to pursue terrorist operatives and dismantle terrorist financial infrastructure.
However, this task has proven elusive, mainly due to lawlessness in the region for the better part of two decades and the sympathetic Muslim population in the Area. According to a May 2002 report released by the Library of Congress’s Federal Research Division, Hizballah has been active in the region since the mid 1980s, planting operatives from the Middle East and recruiting new members from among the Tri-Border Area’s Shiite Muslim population. The report further states that Hizballah terrorist camps are rampant, training recruits for operations throughout the area and the world. New Yorker reporter Jeffrey Goldberg reported in 2002 that Hizballah operates weekend camps in Argentina and Brazil, where children and teenagers are trained in the use of weapons and combat techniques.
To finance worldwide operations Hizballah, along with al-Qaeda and Hamas , engage in smuggling operations, drug trafficking, and money laundering in the region. However, their activities have also grown to encompass illicit operations: piracy of compact discs and DVDs; forgery of passports, driver’s licenses, and other forms of identification; trafficking in humans; smuggling weapons, uranium, and stolen vehicles; and conducting import/export schemes. These activates are often conducted in cooperation with international criminal organizations?Chinese Triads and Russian Mafia?and with South American terrorist organizations?the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) , the National Liberation Army , and Sendero Luminoso . Brazilian security agents estimate that in 2000 alone, at least $261 million was sent from the Islamist organizations operating in the region to the Middle East, the majority of which went to fund Hizballah operations in Lebanon .
Ciudad del Este, with a population of 20,000 Muslims, hosts a variety of Islamic extremists groups and is a major hub for money laundering. These groups often operate in close collaboration with South American terrorist organizations and drug trafficking enterprises, whereby groups such as the FARC receive large caches of weapons in exchange for narcotics. The city was also home to the Hizballah cell that perpetrated that 1992 bombing of the Israeli Embassy and the 1994 bombing of Jewish community center in Argentina . These two Hizballah attacks represent the sole acts of Islamist terrorism in Latin America. In addition, various high-ranking members from the FARC, IRA , and ETA have been identified vacationing in the city.
The formation of TTUs within the Tri-Border Area is a necessary first step in dismantling the lucrative and elaborate rackets that international terrorist and criminal organizations have developed in the past 30 years. Combating terrorism financing must be done in association with the physical pursuit of terrorist operatives and their materiel. Without the necessary funding, terrorist operatives will find it challenging to perpetrate the elaborate and deadly attacks that have become the hallmark of international Islamist terrorist organizations such as al-Qaeda and Hizballah. In addition, eliminating black market operations within the Tri-Border Area will be mutually beneficial for not only the economies of Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay, but also for the US.