Terrorist organizations collected $220 million dollars through kidnappings and ransoms

The Head of the Algerian-African Commission for peace and reconciliation, Ahmed Mizabe, has revealed that terrorist organizations have reaped more than $220 million dollars from abductions and ransom payments, adding that these loads of money, now feeding terrorism, have enabled these terror groups to expand and to spread.

Speaking during an interview with the national radio channel one on Sunday, Mr Ahmed Mizabe said that according to figures released by the US “New York Times” newspaper, the proceeds of ransom payments wrenched by the terrorist groups had reached 125 million dollars since 2008 until 2014 but this figure is much lower than reality, as it is estimated to exceed the staggering amount of $220 million.

He recalled in this connection that Algeria was the first nation to criminalize and to bar payment of ransoms to terrorist groups, because these ill-gotten funds contribute to expanding and spreading the terrorism scourge with very nefarious repercussions for all peoples and countries worldwide.

“Algeria is striving to have a binding international law on the matter being strictly applied by all world countries with no exception in a bid to stamp out the plagues of both money-laundering and terrorism financing.