To Report or Not to Report? An Analysis of the Relationship Between Defence Against Terrorism Financing Suspicious Activity Reports and Fraud in the United Kingdom

To tackle terrorism financing, the United Kingdom has implemented the global mechanisms introduced by the United Nations and the Financial Action Task Force. The ensuing legislative provisions have forced terrorism financiers to adapt their funding mechanisms and move away from their traditional funding sources. Consequently, terrorists can obtain funding by committing fraud, often without detection. While efforts have been made to identify new typologies and adapt relevant legislation, the link between fraud and terrorism financing is misunderstood. This chapter provides a novel investigation and identifies a new terrorism financing fraud typology which will assist in improving our understanding of how terrorists raise and use money. Furthermore, it will also shed a new light on the inadequacies of the United Kingdom’s counter-fraud and counter-terrorism financing reporting mechanisms. In doing so, it will highlight the deficiencies in the use of financial intelligence and the exchange of information from the submission of defence against terrorism financing suspicious activity reports.