Tradesmen and businessmen involved in money laundering for GSPC in desert

Algerian security forces questioned a number of people for working for organised networks including tradesmen and businessmen. They were in charge of laundering smuggled money and invest them for the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC), Echorouk has learnt.

• Investigations are underway to find out the link between money laundering networks in southern Algeria and the Tin Zaouatine attacks.
• These security measures come following repentant terrorists who held senior positions in the terrorist organisation. They told investigators there are a third organisation which includes tradesmen and businessmen. They set up an economic cell in charge of money laundering under the GSPC’s leadership, sources said.
• Investigations show that the GSPC operated in importing cities in southern Algeria and the African Sahel shortly before the last attack carried out by the group in Tin Zaouatine.
• Investigations also showed that most of the money collected by the GSPC in southern Algeria in 2008-2009 came through mediators from northern Mali, Mauritania and the Algerian Sahara. That means the money came from the activity of some tradesmen and businessmen.
• According to information obtained by security forces, fighting equipments used by terrorists in the Tin Zaouatine attack were brought through money collected through the sponsorship of criminal activities.
• Security forces believe that investigations would dismantle the link between the GSPC and its branches in cities in the desert.