St Maarten - funding terrorism? - by Gijs van den Heuvel
The Caribbean island of St Maarten - part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands - is an important centre for international drug trafficking. The island might also be involved in financing terrorism in the Middle East and Afghanistan. These are two conclusions reached in a confidential report about to be published by the Dutch Research and Documentation Centre (RDC).The report claims the authorities in the Windward Islands have details of money being passed to terrorist organisations via St Maarten, and it says huge sums are channelled through bank accounts on the island to organisations said to be linked to the Taliban and Hamas.
There are indications too that St Maarten is being used at a staging post to smuggle people into the United States. Law enforcement agencies say there might also be al-Qaeda trained terrorists on the island who are on the US "no-fly-list" - a list of people banned from flying to the United States.
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