The Dark by Sharon Bolton

Author:Sharon Bolton
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Orion

49

‘So,’ Helen said, two hours later, when Inigo was tucked up in bed, dinner had been eaten and they’d broken apart a bar of Cadbury’s Fruit & Nut, which was Helen’s idea of dessert. ‘You wanted to ask about financing terrorist operations?’

Emma shook her head at the offered bar of chocolate. ‘Lacey said it was your specialism at Interpol.’

Helen threw Lacey a glance. ‘She’s flattering me. I can probably give you enough background though, so shoot.’

‘Terrorism is expensive,’ Emma began, after glancing down at her notes. ‘Where are MenMatter getting their money from?’

‘It can be,’ Helen agreed, ‘but what we’ve seen so far from the incel crowd is low budget stuff. The cost of the inflatable, the pram, the fake baby. Even with the web presence, you’re talking low thousands at most.’

Emma said, ‘If they scale things up, which they keep threatening to do, they’ll need more money. Bombs won’t come cheap.’

Helen said, ‘A lot of terrorism is state sponsored, but that’s unlikely to be the case here. Some groups use commercial activities to fund their attacks, either legal or otherwise. The IRA notoriously owned a couple of hundred taxi cars, a few pubs, some gaming machines. The trouble with money-making businesses is that they require a lot of work in themselves, initial investment money, time and attention to make them successful.

I’d be amazed if a group as new as MenMatter were funding their activities commercially. Which leaves two routes. One, setting up one or more registered charities and seeking donations. Several Islamic terror groups are funded that way. The other, which is the only one I think could work in this instance is crowdfunding. The thousands of men around the world that allegedly support the movement can be asked to fund it too. A lot of small donations can add up.’

‘You mean like a GoFundMe page?’ Emma asked.

‘That would be dismantled very quickly,’ Dana said. ‘Most crowdfunding platforms keep a watching brief over who’s using them. I can’t see a terror group lasting long.’

‘There are some far-right platforms that would be more tolerant,’ Helen explained. ‘Hatreon, WeSearchr, Counter Fund. The problem with those is that once the banks and the credit card companies get wise to what’s going on, they stop processing the payments.’

‘Some switch successfully to cryptocurrencies like bitcoin,’ Dana said. ‘But not everyone’s comfortable using them.’

‘They’re getting more popular, though,’ Helen said. ‘And there’s no shortage of tutorials available on how to use them. So, that would be my guess: MenMatter are crowdfunding, using a far-right platform and a cyber currency.’

‘They are,’ Lacey said. ‘Sorry, Dana, I haven’t had time to brief you. I had a phone call from Theo Cox today, you know one of the guys in Mark’s team. Theo’s their finance guy. He did a master’s at UCL after Cambridge.’

Dana nodded.

‘Well, finance-guy-Theo said an appeal had been launched on the MenMatter website, the one called Rage,’ Lacey went on. ‘They want donations to fund the defence of those three men we’ve charged in connection with the Tower Bridge abduction.

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