Willem Els: Operation Catalyst nets 83 terror-funding suspects

A first-of-its-kind operation targeting terrorism financing has led to 83 arrests across six African countries and the identification of 160 persons of interest. In this interview with BizNews, Willem Els of the Institute for Security Studies (ISS) shares details of the two-month Operation Catalyst, jointly coordinated by INTERPOL and AFRIPOL, during which authorities screened more than 15,000 persons of interest and entities, uncovering around USD 260 million potentially linked to terrorism-related activities. “ it was a very, really big event…it made a huge impact on Africa”. Els explains why tackling terrorist financing is particularly complex for law enforcement, as it often cuts across diverse criminal activities, including fraud, kidnapping for ransom, illicit trade, online scams, Ponzi schemes and the misuse of virtual assets. Els also recalls how he and the late President Nelson Mandela were on the Blue Train - along with scores of foreign dignitaries and premiers and heads of state - when their train was targeted by local terrorists. “…just think what would have happened…”.Sign up for your early morning brew of the BizNews Insider to keep you up to speed with the content that matters. The newsletter will land in your inbox at 5:30am weekdays. Register here.Support South Africa’s bastion of independent journalism, offering balanced insights on investments, business, and the political economy, by joining BizNews Premium. Register here.If you prefer WhatsApp for updates, sign up to the BizNews channel here..Watch here.Listen here.Edited transcript of the interview.Chris Steyn (00:01.987)83 arrests have been made across six African countries in a first-of-its kind operation targeting terrorist financing. We speak to Willem Els of the Institute for Security Studies about Operation Catalyst. Welcome, Willem. Willem Els (00:22.99)Hello Chris, thanks for inviting me. Yeah, I think it was a very, really big event. It was the first of its kind, as you mentioned, and it made a huge impact on Africa. Chris Steyn (00:36.909)Willem, in which countries did this operation hit? Willem Els (00:42.806)Okay, what they did is they focused on six countries and those countries are Angola, our region Cameroon, Kenya, Namibia, and Nigeria, and then South Sudan. And it's strange that only those countries were targeted. There must be a reason for them to target them. If you look at, for instance, Nigeria is a financial hub for West Africa, where Kenya is a financial hub for East Africa, but they haven't targeted the financial hub for Southern Africa, that is South Africa. So that is quite interesting. But they looked at Namibia, they looked at Angola, and South Sudan is a bit of an outlier because there's not a lot going on there, a lot of turmoil and civil war going on. So the fact that they went there is actually surprising. Chris Steyn (01:30.307)I was perplexed that they skipped South Africa because we know that South Africa has become a hub for terrorism financing. Willem Els (01:41.07)Exactly, you know, some time ago, a team from Times did an investigation and they came up with a conclusion that more than 6 billion Rand is being channeled towards countries in conflict and most probably going to terrorists in in that country. And also, we saw that with FATF when they graylisted us. That was one of the main concerns. And if you look at what's happening here in South Africa, a lot of money has been generated. And we see that the main routes that it goes, it takes is to Puntland. And that's very interesting because in some of the cases it came up that came before court. Then in Puntland is actually a self-governing area of Somalia that's not under the control of the president of Somalia. They've got a separate government there. So that makes it very difficult for South Africa now to follow the money and even to interact with them. And if you want to supoena people to come to testify in court, et cetera, et cetera, it cannot happen. So that just makes it very difficult for us to follow that money. But we see that from there, the money is being channeled, of course, for their own operations. But it's also been channeled towards the DRC, the Central Republic of ISIS in Congo, as well as to West Africa, where ISWAP is very busy, the Islamic State in West Africa. But also we saw that it's been channeled towards the Islamic State in Mozambique, that is in Cabo Delgado. Chris Steyn (03:19.043)Just going back to these arrests, Willem, can you break down the 83 for us? What were they for exactly? Willem Els (03:26.03)Okay, Okay, if you look at terror funding and your financial crimes, and especially at FATF, they focus on two things. The one thing is, of course, terror funding. And the second one goes hand in glove with it is your money laundering. And your cyber crimes also come into that. So we see that billions and billions of rands are being channeled and being laundered, not only in South Africa. We saw that with all the...or the evidence coming out in the commissions, how much money is intended are there. But we see that they recovered, they screened 15,000 people and they uncovered 360 million US dollars just through that. And they say that with ongoing investigations, they then seized another 600,000 US dollars. Chris Steyn (04:20.643)How long did this operation take, Willem? Willem Els (04:23.606)Okay, they worked from September and up to July. July to September, sorry. And yeah, they were very active. We see that they were helped by Interpol in Lyon, where they have a lot of capability and expertise that we do not have in Africa, necessarily. But also, they took hands with AfriPol. Now, people must understand where AfriPol is coming from. You know, AfriPol...has been there in name for a long time, where they attempted to actually establish a single police service for Africa that will be coordinated by the African Union, very much on the same lines as Europol, that is established in Europe, that help them. That's sort of almost like your FBI that is working in all the states on certain matters, they've got certain jurisdictions and so on. But it never really took off and it never got the support that it really deserved. And at the moment, it is almost like a lame duck that is situated there in Addis. So for them now to come up with this one, I think it goes a long way to strengthen the cause of AFRIPOL and to see how they and INTERPOL can take hands in order to make our continent a safer place. Chris Steyn (05:47.757)So who coordinated AFRIPOL and Interpol in this operation? Willem Els (05:51.592)That is Interpol is coordinated by Interpol itself. They've got, if I'm not mistaken, about 119 member countries. The headquarters is in Lyon, in France. And in Africa, we've got basically four different regions. … All the countries north of the Sahel, they are regarded as to be part of the Middle East, of the Arabic sort of centre. So that is where Interpol comes from. But if it goes to Afripol, Afripol is actually controlled by the African Union, is one of the arms or one of the organs of the African Union. Chris Steyn (06:46.499)Who initiated this operation? Willem Els (06:50.518)I think it was the new, you see, know, last year we got a new Secretary General for Interpol incoming… And now when the new broom was elected, as we call him, he's from Brazil, he came in and he had new ideas, he had new visions and a new strategy. And one of that was to take hands with Afripol and also to actually see how they can look at your problems at the moment. It's been identified as 12 countries of, I think it's 23 countries at the moment, are being graylisted in the world and 12 of those countries are from Africa. So that's more than...more than half of those countries are from Africa. It just indicates that there's a problem, not as I mentioned, with the terror funding that is really big, but also your money laundering that is being done in these countries. And if you do not curb that, then they say that the illicit economy in Africa is almost twice as big as the legal or the normal economy. Chris Steyn (08:04.867)Willem what makes tackling terrorist financing so complex? Willem Els (08:09.614)In the first place, these people make use of very complex means. In Africa, for instance, or in your Arab speaking world, you have what they call the hawala system. Now that's an ancient system of trust in how money is being moved. And it's very secretive; it really doesn't leave a big paper trail. That has been abused. It's a good system that has been used for..for ages by your merchants and by these people. But now it's being abused by your terror organisations as well. And then also, you know, they venture into cryptocurrencies. For instance, there is a case currently ongoing in, it's been on the books for very long time, in KwaZulu-Natal. It was a couple from the UK that was actually killed…The case is still ongoing. And then they tortured them and they extracted the passwords from their credit cards and everything from them. And then not long after that, there was a guy apprehended in Rotterdam in the Netherlands and he bought cryptocurrencies and he sent it to ISIS from there and using the credit card credentials of this family. So that guy has been found guilty. He's currently serving time in the Netherlands, but here we see that the case is still ongoing and not going very fast anyway. Chris Steyn (09:49.741)Yes, I was surprised to see Angola on the list, but they made a huge discovery there, did they not, in this operation? Willem Els (09:58.068)Yeah, know, Angola has been an outlier for... It's a tremendously wealthy country in terms of the resources and the oil and the diamonds that they got. But it's also one of the poorest countries in Africa. So that is why one of the reasons they went. But also the current chairperson of the African Union, or the serving chairperson, is also the president of Angola….So I think that was one of the reasons why they highlighted him. And he wanted to become very visible. We see that especially with the peace talks in the DRC between the M23 and the government, we saw that President Lorenzo, he really tried very hard to actually bring them together. So he's very active. And I think this is also, he's trying to clean up the country after...the previous government that was there for a very long time and a lot of allegations of corruption and looting that took place. So I think that is part of his strategy to bring that in. But also what I see here is that, know, Interpol becoming more active in utilising their resources. They got resources that are first world in many ways that many of your poor African countries do not have. And with them coming in with that, it actually paved the way for these criminals that were arrested. They actually hid behind the incompetence, but also the insufficient funding and expertise that is in our African countries in order to exploit it for these means..Read more:.Willem Els: Terror funding and organised crime thriving on poor governance.Chris Steyn (11:42.307)It sounds like what is really needed is good intelligence and penetration of these organisations. To what extent is that happening in South Africa? Willem Els (11:54.696)In South Africa, our intelligence is still not where we're supposed to be, but FATF actually laid bare some of our deficiencies. And because of that, you see that the FIC Act has been amended. There's been more funds allocated. We see that the GILAB Act is in process and they're trying to get that up. It's also because of recommendations of FATF. We really don't, we need to be where we want to be. But we are getting there. But two months ago we were in Dar es Salaam where we had a conference on terror funding and especially also your money laundering. And it was very encouraging to see how Africa is picking up and how it is becoming the focus. And that's mainly because of the countries that have been gray listed. So gray listing is not….. bad for us, even though it's bad for the economy, it was like a wake-up call for us, but also a wake-up call for these countries to start to get their house in order. And we see that there's a lot of assistance from your first world countries in order to assist them. But also what is a challenge for us in Africa, if you look at your major intelligence or your major events and you look at the intelligence, for instance, let's look at the Westgate attack. We see that about 12 months before the attack a Western intelligence service actually provided them with intelligence that there's going to be an attack and that it's going to be in Nairobi. And then three months before the attack, they gave them another update. They said it was going to be a Mumbai-like attack and that it will be at a partially Israeli-owned mall. And there are not many of them there. So that really gave them very good intelligence. But unfortunately, if you look at the parliamentary report of Kenya, they did not pick up that intelligence, they did not act on that intelligence. And one of the biggest things is that whenever there's a major intelligence that has been revealed, it seems that it doesn't come from Africa. It comes from the other agencies that are partners, and then we start to work with it. And maybe because they've got much more resources than us, et cetera, et cetera. But that just indicates, you know, whenever we get the Americans or the British of someone here in South Africa warning us about something… Willem Els (14:20.662)…not to push them back, but to go and sit down with them, look at the intelligence and see if we can verify what they do and take it from there. With all the terror funding cases, we see that the intelligence is not only coming from South Africa, it's also coming from partners in other countries. And it makes it quite problematic because at the end of the day, when you go to court, you have to support other people to come and testify. And it's always difficult to get other people here to testify. Chris Steyn (14:48.611)Yeah, so you actually have to rework that intelligence and independently verify it so that you can take it to court. But South Africa has not really had a history of being grateful for foreign intelligence, or what I'm talking about in the last 30 years, and often feels insulted by it or rejects it or is suspicious of it. Willem Els (15:13.312)Of course, you know, and I think it's because, you know, in most of the cases, your intelligence is being exposed. They were found napping and they embarrassed that they didn't come with it first. But, you know, if it's for the good of the country and if it's in this field, sometimes it's better to just take it on the chin and admit your deficiencies and then work with these people and then try to solve and prevent because, you know, intelligence...I always say that a leader like a president working without credible intelligence is like someone working with a stick, a blind person. You know, he can't preempt, they cannot do anything proactively. They always end up, you know, countering these challenges reactively instead of proactively. And that is what intelligence gives you. When you’ve got very good proactive intelligence. You can stop, you can prevent a lot of problems. Chris Steyn (16:11.671)Now, there have been allegations over many years that this government has turned a blind eye to the operations of terror-linked individuals and organisations on its soil. Willem Els (16:23.342)Yeah, think if you look back in the 90s, especially with with Pagad, you know, we had the Pagad bombings there, more than 300 bombings in this period of just under two years. So, so intelligence there was really lacking because after after 94, you know, there was a hesitancy, there was distrust, there was a lot of challenges that we had to go through in the moving into the new South Africa and the systems. And of course, these people, they exploited that. And we lacked that. And even if you look then at the trial that came just after that, Boeremag trial, the one that lasted for so long, it really exposed some, but at the end of the day, our intelligence was really working there. But you know, there was an incident where the the Worcester bombing, I don't even remember that's quite quite a long time ago, where they placed the bomb at one of the supermarkets in Worcester just before Christmas. It detonated, many people got injured, I think two or three people got killed. But that cell actually had a placed an IED, bomb in one of the tunnels where the Blue Train was going to drive to go through. And we only discovered the IEDs after the train went through because it didn't function. It malfunctioned. We had no intelligence on that. So that exposed actually our capacity on that. And then also there was another attack on the Blue Train…The right-wing group actually blew up the railway line, but it wasn't a very good job and the train went over it and actually continued. And both those incidents actually was took place with Mandela on the train because it was the inauguration of the new Blue Train. So and I was on the train. So that is why we know that we are part of the security contingency and we had no intelligence on that. Chris Steyn (18:34.147)Good heavens, you and Mandela, President Mandela on that train, not knowing. Willem Els (18:41.224)…just think what would have happened. Yeah, and apart from that, there were a lot of foreign dignitaries and premiers and heads of state on the train as well. So he invited all his friends and it was a big... We traveled there for about, yeah, twice as long. It took us to get down there because in every main station it would stop. And then you were like at Kimberley, would stop at Klerksdorp, they would stop, and then all the people will gather there and you have a speech there and greet the people and then we move on. So it was a stop and go, stop and go trip and that was the inauguration of the new Blue Train. Chris Steyn (19:20.737)And when did you find out that it was supposed to have been blown up? Willem Els (19:25.454)Afterwards, the one in… the driver of the train, indicated that there was something wrong after we passed it. We were on the follow train, there were two trains going. Then we called the guys to inspect and they found the place where it was blown up. Later, the cell was arrested …They actually went to the TRC and they got amnesty. Chris Steyn (19:52.515)Well, that was Willem Els of Institute for Security Studies speaking to BizNews about the fight to tackle terrorist financing. I'm Chris Steyn. Thank you, Willem.

Willem Els: Operation Catalyst nets 83 terror-funding suspects

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