RT 23 Oct, 2019
A massive, ever-growing database used by the world’s largest
banks to track terrorism financing and other crimes has compiled
millions of names from unverified sources – including scandal sheets and
search engine results.
The World-Check database
adds 25,000 names every month to its massive risk list, used by 49 of
the world’s 50 largest banks to monitor possible financial, regulatory
and reputational liabilities. Over three million people are currently on
the list – many not convicted of any crime, some not even aware they
are suspected of one.
Getting on the list is easy – employees
scour publicly available sources, from court records to search engine
results, and apparently make little effort to verify what they find. An investigation
by Al Jazeera found hundreds of thousands of Muslim names, some
seemingly absurd. In one example, retired Egyptian football player
Mohamed Aboutrika was designated a “terrorist” after the
Egyptian government added him to its domestic terrorism list for
supporting the country’s first democratically elected president, Mohamed
Morsi, after he was overthrown.
Beyond the overpopulated
terrorist databases, the Qatari outlet found that World-Check scours the
scandal-sheets and tabloid newspapers of Israel and other countries for
names, though its own website claims “research is sourced from reputable public domain sources.” Indeed, World-Check boasts that its database includes not only convictions but “person accused, investigated, arrested, charged, indicted, detained, questioned, or on trial” for a laundry list of crimes including everything from bribery and corruption to slave labor, “cheating,” or “environmental crimes.”
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