SIERRA LEONE & LIBERIA
January 1st, 2004
BY RICHARD HURSTThe former British colony of Sierra Leone has been a focus of a money laundering scandal since the September 11 attacks in the US, when it was uncovered (in the New York Times) that a senior member of the al Qaeda organisation, Ibrahim Bah, had been purchasing and stockpiling diamonds mined by the country's Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebels.It appears that the diamonds were part of a larger money laundering effort on the part of al Qaeda to protect its funds, as key bank accounts became frozen. The terror group was attracted to the illicit ...
Full access to this article can be arranged with permission from the client that first ordered it. Please contact us to request access. Entries are uploaded to our archive at least one year after being published by a client – free access is restricted to International News Services journalists for background research only. The article date indicates when copy was filed to a client, not when posted to this archive. Upon client requests, International News Services will remove such articles from the archive or not upload them in the first place. They are included to demonstrate the breadth of topics undertaken by the agency and also to help promote clients’ coverage.