Counterterrorism Finance Unit

The Counterterrorism Finance Unit (CT Finance) implements significant parts of our nation's strategy to cut off financial support to terrorists. Following financial leads, and starving terrorists of their access to money, resources, and support, is second only to bringing them to justice in our national strategy. In this effort, the Counterterrorism Finance Unit works closely with the Public Designations Unit in the Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism.

The CT Finance Unit coordinates the delivery of technical assistance and training to governments around the world that seek to improve their ability to investigate, identify, and interdict the flow of money to terrorist groups. The CT Finance Unit, along with the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement at the US Department of State, funds and coordinates interagency training and technical assistance in the five basic components of a comprehensive counter terrorist financing/anti-money laundering regime: legal frameworks, financial regulatory systems, financial intelligence units, law enforcement, and judicial/prosecutorial development. Within the Department of State, the CT Finance Unit also works with the Office of Terrorist Finance and Economic Sanctions Policy in the Bureau of Economic and Business Affairs.

To foster a coordinated US government response to terrorist financing, the CT Finance Unit works closely with the White House and the U.S. Department of the Treasury [see Office of Foreign Asset Controls; Fact Sheet: U.S. Treasury Department's Efforts Against Terrorist Financing; U.S. Treasury Department Report to Congress on the USA PATRIOT ACT]. It also works with the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), and other international organizations and foreign governments, to isolate terrorist financiers and to cut off the sources and flows of support for terrorists.

In a November 2005 speech to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), Ambassador Henry A. Crumpton, Coordinator for Counterterrorism, discussed the importance of counterterrorism finance efforts.

Read recent Counterterrorism Finance accomplishments.