Terrorists & Texas (hold 'em), Gambling and Terrorist Finance

At the recent conference Combating Cybercrime in Betting and Gaming 2010, a number of interesting topics were covered. Of particular interest to the author of this blog was the coverage of terrorist utilization of the internet for fundraising and money laundering. In an example of cyberterrorism, online gambling sites were used by three men, who were also accused of inciting terror, to launder millions of dollars that had been stolen through online check fraud and identity theft schemes. Apparently the men had used multiple accounts to move money through the online gambling sites to conceal the identity of the money. Allegedly, they continued these operations while in jail! According to a reporter from The Register, at least 23 investigations are ongoing into the use of online gambling sites to finance terrorism.