BRUSSELS, 26 May 2004 — Profits from fake CDs and car parts and other counterfeit goods are used to finance terrorism, Interpol said yesterday, urging governments across the world to stop ignoring the multi-billion-dollar crime.
“Interpol believes there is a significant link between counterfeiting and terrorism in locations where there are entrenched terrorist groups,” the international police network’s secretary-general, Ronald Noble, told reporters in Brussels.
“What I find absolutely amazing is that there is this multi-billion-dollar crime problem that affects the safety of people, the security of governments, that is connected to organized crime, drug trafficking and terrorism.
“And no one, no one pressures me as secretary-general of Interpol to say what I am doing to fight this problem. No one,” he said at a first Global Congress on Combating Counterfeiting.
Trade in counterfeit goods was estimated at $450 billion in 2000. Products targeted range from car and airplane parts and medicines to clothes, cigarettes, music and movies.
Billions of dollars are lost annually in tax revenues and profits for companies whose products are being faked. According to European Commission figures, the illegal trade is responsible for the loss of up to 100,000 jobs a year in Europe.
Noble said Interpol had found links between terrorism and counterfeiting in the Middle East, Europe and Latin America.
In an operation involving fake car brakes, Lebanese law enforcement authorities shared information with Interpol, which found some of the suspects had links with terrorist groups.
Militants in Northern Ireland were known to be involved in organized crime and traded in a whole range of counterfeit products from cigarettes to music CDs. Rebels in Colombia have also been linked to counterfeiting, Noble said.
Interpol officials said they hoped increased publicity about links between terrorism and counterfeiting would deter consumers from buying cheap fake designer handbags and other accessories.
“I hope it will mean members of the public do focus on that and think about what they are doing before they purchase these products,” said Crime Intelligence Officer John Newton.
But governments also needed to get involved in the fight against counterfeiting, Noble said, adding only a handful of nations were paying sufficient attention to the problem.
Meanwhile a leading think tank warned that despite losses around the world, Al-Qaeda had more than 18,000 potential terrorists and its ranks were growing because of Iraq.
Al-Qaeda still has a functioning leadership despite the deaths or capture of key figures and estimates suggest Al-Qaeda operates in more than 60 nations around the world, the International Institute of Strategic Studies said in its Strategic Survey 2003/4. The terrorist group poses a growing threat to Western interests and attacks are likely to increase, the private think tank said.
