Countering Terrorist Finance: Methods and Effectiveness

The Capstone project team was tasked to provide an overview of the methods used to finance terrorists who threaten U.S. interests, including the historical development of important terrorist groups and the evolution of their methods of finance in response to enforcement efforts by the United States and other actors.

The final deliverable to the client explored emerging methods of terrorist finance and will use comparative analysis to find similarities and differences between terrorist groups based on their organizational structures, their use of formal versus informal systems of finance, and their use of legal versus criminal methods of fundraising. The research report concluded with recommendations for improving the counterterror-finance regime in United States, including how the U.S. government can increase the effectiveness of private-sector and multilateral partnerships.