Back i could only respond through that email. But what i meant to say is we couldnt find out who was sending it. It was obvious that they were english speaking, however, because, you know, of the commander language. Was there specifics about a ransom number or conditions . When they initially reached out to us, yes. It was ridiculous. Like they wanted 100 million euro or all muslim prisoners kind of thing. And you know, fbi, you know, of course we right away sent tight the fbi and they just said keep them talking, keep them talking. But within a few emails when they realized they were just talking to the family, they had absolutely no interest. And so they cut off discussions until the only other time, sir, was when the french came out in march of 2014, they came out with another very specific offer to negotiate for all americans and all of the british. And your primary source of contact in the United States was the fbi . We had no primary source. I did have one we had one fbi agent who debriefed me all the time. Debriefed you on what . Anything. I mean, i was talking to anybody, all of the freed hostages that i could, there were a lot of times fbi couldnt even get to them. At any point during your ordeal did you get a sense that your son was going to be freed at some point . Not at all. However, our government told me anyone i talked to at state or fbi, that jim was the highest priority. So we were deceived throughout the first 18 months. You never believed that . I believed it totally, sir. Thats why we didnt try to raise ransom or do anything privately. We totally believed it. When did you stop believing it . By the late spring of 2014 when i could primarily when Mark Mitchell threatened us three times and made it very obvious that our government was going to do nothing for those citizens. And what was the nature of mark what was his threat . Oh, that first of all, as americans if we dared to raise a ransom to get our loved ones out, we would definitely be prosecuted. And secondly, theres in way our government would ever ask another country. He was going to by the law. And i know that the law says that were not you know, we dont want qatar to do these things. But what he was saying essentially is your government will do nothing to get your people out. Nothing. And he just said anytime a very i mean, god bless that man anyway. I dont know. Its very appalling that as an american that we would do nothing for some of the best of america . Some of our journalists, some people who care about the suffering of the people in syria . It was appalling to me, sir. I have no further questions. Thank the gentleman from new york. We will be in a short recess until the members vote and quickly come back and well continue this. I want to thank the witnesses for your patience. But your information is so important that we dont want to i dont want to end this hearing at this point. Well be in recess for 15 minutes maximum. Subcommittee will reconvene. The chair recognizes the gentleman from california, mr. Sherman. Thank you. Qatar doesnt just allow its citizens to give money to Terrorists Groups. Government money is going to hamas and other terrorist groups. I think we have to get serious about this war. Ill give you some examples of where at least some of our friends are not serious. The Iraqi Government pays salaries to tomorrower Civil Servants who live in isis controlled areas. I do not remember general due gal sending gold coins to french teachers in normandy or bordeaux. The oil fields controlled by isis we dont bomb. We bombed World War Ii Oil fields. We dont bomb these. Some say its because the iraqis want to get them back entact. Some say its because the Iraqi Government is making a lot of money on this war and doesnt want to see isis lose the revenue. But you have something which by the definitions of the war we took most seriously world war ii, a strategic target. We know that isis is pumping the oil. We hit their mobile refineries but we wont hit the oil fields. Were not hitting the dams, their electric generation facilities and i cant get a straight answer out 0 our government or the Iraqi Government as to whether iraq is providing free electricity to mosul. But the lights are on. Theyre not on all of the time but theyre on for a reason. The biggest score and i realize it may be slightly out the side of the definition of the hearing although we do have the word donations in this. Isis got its hands on 500 million of iraqi currency. What other countries do, for various reasons, is they issue new currency. You do a recall of the green backs and you issue blue backs. Iraq didnt do that because thats a technique that is used to go after corrupt politicians and organized crime. And when you have a baghdad government installed by us protected by us, financed with our money that is pretty dependent upon infiltrated by, controlled by iran and organized and corrupt elements, theyre not going to recall the currency. So as to hostages, we definitely should not do nothing. The raid didnt work, but it shows the u. S. Determination. We need to sanction iran for holding five american hostages. The president made it clear that the deal in geneva related only to nuclear weapons. And if any other country were holding five of our hostages, we would, we would certainly sanction them. Dr. Weinberg, does qatar even pretend to outlaw voluntary contributions made by its citizens to hamas . Is that a violation of qatary law . It doesnt discuss this. Theyve had several laws on the books, one approved by the ie mere this week banning individual banning citizens from collecting money without authorization for donations. But this is the thats collecting from others. Is it illegal to send your money directly . Hamas Donation Fund care of gaza. The qatary government has given itself the authority to list Terrorists Group or individuals have they listed any . Not to my knowledge. The u. S. Has yet to see serious conditions so its illegal to give money to anyone on the list and the list is a blank piece of paper . The latest law theoretically means that you need to get Governmental Authority to collect donations for anybody. To collect. But i mean, its if qatarys see that theres a disaster in bangladesh and they give to the lang la desh society or unicef or Something Like that, they dont knee government permission to write a check to unicef do they in. I think the most striking evidence in this regard is that the United States sanctioned two qatary nationals in august who, as i understand it, were running the most high profile Fundraising Organization for syria relief in qatar. The u. S. Alleged that they both were high level al qaeda official operatives. It took the qatarys almost a year after the organization was, according to the washington, endorsed on social media, to shut it down. And a year after that when the u. S. Actually sanctioned them, the u. S. Indicated that the qatary had not arrested the two men. Just because you host a u. S. Military base does not mean that the United States has to preserve your regime. We have a military base in cuba. That doesnt mean we are supporters of the government in havana, our or policy changed from this way or that way. Its nice to have the base there. That doesnt mean we have to support their government. Id also point out and with mrs. Foley here, i, you know, i feel bad saying it, but i dont think we should be allowing paying money, ransom to terrorists organizations. It from an emotional standpoint you want to, from an emotional standpoint it may get your particular loved one back. But its just a while before they kill some other americans or see some other american hostages. And of course with money that gives them both an incentive and capacity. So i will yield back. Thank you for your time. Chair recognizes mr. Keating, massachusetts. Thats okay. Thank you, mr. Chairman. A question about the nonprofits again, not just qatar but particularly mr. Cassara, dr. Weinberg, what other nonprofits are there in the world . Are some people donating unwittingly, not knowing where some of the money is going . Are we able to do that . If you could just enlighten us on some of the sources of financing that the terrorists get. Sure, absolutely. This has been a long standing practice among financial operatives for al qaeda. We cant openly practice what we do so lets cloak anytime a veneer of charitable relief. Theres a particularly noteworthy case in kuwait as well. There was a fundraising outfit operated by an individual which was presenting itself in most of its presentations as relief for the syrian people. Support for legitimate resistance. But practice according to what the u. S. Government has designated, he was basically funding al qaeda in very large amounts. And since then he has been called in for questioning by the kuwait authorities are donors aware . Are some of them innocently some of them are innocently being exploited. His tribe in kuwait as well as other twieb has been exploited by people trying to play on their sympathies. The challenge is that once these sorts of frauds are exposed, the penaltities are inconsistent at best in some f these places. So the United States can work to try to build leverage to motivate the host government to act because apparently so far they dont seem to be sufficiently consistently motivated. I imagine if you go with the nonprofit name, sort of like whacamole. In that instance that individual is under sanctions but his cocaptain in one of his main fundraising networks is a senior operative in a kuwait political party. Dr. Dante, im curious. The passage way for the antiquities. What are some of the transit countries. Whats being done there. Are their parallels . How can we i think we can do things here at home to, you know, tap down on demand, talk to people in the uk, similarly that are motivated to do that in terms of final destinations. What about the transit countries and what can we do to disrupt the chain . In the cases that weve seen over the last 16 month twbs primary trafficking points for antiquities coming out of syria were lebanon and turkey. And from that point much of the material was going to bulgaria and greece and then with the objective of moving the material into the shanken zone, the free border zone. There were allegedly routes taking them to jordan, israel and the gulf as well. Since, lets say, october, some of those routes have shifted as the turks have taken military action, some of the border crossings that the Islamic State were using have fallen to Turkish Forces and we see initial indicators that some of the sunni arab and Islamic State, isis, trafficking is moving towards lebanon. Theres been a shift in the markets there presumably to take the material from lebanon to cypress greece or bulgaria. I would say in terms of shutting the trade down, what could be done to limit the number of ports in the Illicit Trade and limit the number of people that can import legal antiquities. Are they following drug or Money Laundering . In looking at the routes that the material is taking through turkey and bulgaria, i was following a lot of other contraband out to have country, stolen automobiles and capital goods and following the route that the fighters, entering the country and illegal weapons. The same border crossings. In a pdf posted online, satellite imagery in country sources indicated that that was a route that the antiquities were leaving the country from to ports in western turkey. Its in southern and western turkey where the Islamic State is aligning with or joining us with organized crime units within turkey to move that. Islamic state is new management taking advantage of the existing Traffic Networks and theyve essentially just encouraged additional far more looting and trafficking. But these routes existed in the preconflict period. Any human traffics involved in that at all . Not that im aware of. Thank you. I field back. Chair recognizes the gentleman from new york. Kidnapping for ransom has become a significant source of Terror Financing. In 2003 al qaeda will get about 200,000 per hostage. Now theyre getting 10 million. Over half of al qaedas operating revenue comes from ransom from kidnapping. But isis seems to be different. Isis seems to be involved in other activity. And a lot of their ability to raise funds is locally, terrorizing the local population, taxing people, every activity thats done there is taxed and results in a Revenue Source for isis. Any thoughts about that distinction and what is gleaned from it . Anybody on the panel. I think its certainly important to con tech chulize this like you said. And to say that, the primary sources of revenue that isis in particular have are derived from control of local territory. I think its also important for us to recognize that treasuries indicated that isis, as well as branches of al qaeda in yemen and north africa have been able to conquer territory in part because theyve used private donations as well as ransoms to fuel and to fund that territorial conquest. Particularly as the United States and our allies work to cut off their income from Oil Smuggling and from other and from their ability to even hold territory in the first place. Theyre going to fall back on these other sorts of revenue as well. So if we really want to conquer the phenomenon, we need to address this. Weve also learned that isis and al qaeda frequently will use the private donations and external funding to particularly pay for moving recruits from other countries which theyve done in the tens of thousands to battle zones. If we can cut off these two other sources of funding, we may be able to limit the abilities the ability of the organization to function even if it still has other sources of revenue. Its not only sources of funding, its laundering money. Id just like to share a quick anecdote. 2002, not too long after 9 11 i had a conversation with a pakistani gentleman who you in markets. We were talking about things we were talking about today. I was talking to them about tradebased Money Laundering, over and under valuation, the misuse of the afghan transit trade, et cetera, et cetera, and he finally turns to me. He says, mr. John, he says, dont you know that your enemies are transferring money in value right under your noses but the west doesnt see it. Your enemies are laughing at you. I think that kind of encaps lated a lot of what this issue is all about. We spend an incredible amount of time the last 14 years since 9 11 looking in many of the wrong places. Weve been concentrating on Financial Intelligence, setting up Financial Intelligence unit, filing suspicious activity reports, sanctions and designati designations. Were a nation of laws. Our adversaries, the terrorists, theyre not. Theyre laughing at us. Okay . We need to start thinking how they operate, all right . We need to understand their cultures, their methods of doing business, their values. Were making progress but its taking far too long. I think were kind of emphasizing the wrong things. Just an observation. I would concur with that in a big way. I mean, i just feel that they have the upper hand because they are shrewder. They are they have studied us. They know how to use twitter. They know how to use pr, video, et cetera, to get their message to recruit people who hate us. And we you know, we wont even talk to them. I mean, weve got to know our enemies. Weve got to use our cultural expertise to really get serious about engaging with us. And, you know, i mean, thats why, you know, i realize jim was just a Young American but he they didnt our fbi and state didnt use that situation with four americans being held there to find out who are these people that are holding on to our americans. Why are they holding them. What do they want . They didnt even try. And how are we going to understand and engage this enemy if we dont even try to know them . Thank you. Yield back. Chair recognizes itself for a few more questions in closing. In addition to the list we started out making about where terrorist organizations get their money, we have to now add wildlife poaching is another way they get their money. And as our friend from new york mentioned, Human Trafficking. They make money off of Human Trafficking as well, and charities. Let me ask you something. You mentioned specific clibt about charities in other countries. Do we have charities in the United States that are not really charities, theyre just a front for Money Laundering or donations that go to charity but ends up in the hands of these bad guys . Yeah. The most recently u. S. Law enforcement authorities, i believe, pressed charges against a network of several yemeni nationals who were using illicit methods within the United States to fund raise for al qaeda and the Arabian Peninsula including defrauding credit card company, taking out money and then closing down the accounts. Also, if you look back historically, hamas used u. S. Territory quite deafly in methods that were exposed during the Holy Land Foundation trial and many of those individuals have gone on abroad. People who are linked to the Holy Land Foundation, to continue to be parts of hamas regional financial network, i colluding one case i identified in my written testimony. And once again, the handful of individuals who do most of the contributing to foreign terrorist organizations, giving them money. We know who those people are, is that right, or not . Sometimes. We know who some of them are . Right. Part of the challenge is the donors are often harder to track down than the operators themselves. If you look at almost as a p