£43M frozen in outlawed terrorist bank accounts

Bank accounts suspected of being used by outlawed terrorist organisations - including Osama bin Laden’s al Qaida network - have now been frozen in a total of 130 countries, a high-ranking US financial official said.

US Treasury Deputy Secretary Kenneth Dam, on a flying visit to London last night, said STG£43.1m had been blocked world-wide since the terrorist atrocities on September 11.

He said £7.6m of it, in six bank accounts, had been frozen in the UK.

Some £63.9m of assets belonging to the Taliban and Osama bin Laden had already been frozen in the UK before September 11.

Mr Dam said: ‘‘One hundred and ninety five countries have expressed their support for the effort on terrorist finance and 130 countries have blocked accounts, that’s quite a large number of countries.

‘‘We have indications that this has had a positive contributing effect on the war against al Qaida.’’

Mr Dam said he did not believe the millions frozen in London were a sign that it was a financial centre for terrorists - instead it showed the energy with which UK officials were acting.

But he said al-Qaida were thought to have been very active in south east Asia and the Middle East.

He said he did not know how much the organisation was worth, but it must be a very substantial amount.

Mr Dam is also due to meet with Chancellor Gordon Brown tomorrow.

He said the US was getting co-operation from Saudi Arabia.

‘‘We are satisfied they are co-operating and we believe they will be co-operating more.’’

In the UK, the September 11 attacks are thought to have triggered a large rise in the number of suspicious transaction reports (STRs) made by financial institutions to the National Criminal Intelligence Service.

In October there were 4,387, almost four times as many as in the same period last year.

NCIS expects there to be around 30,000 in 2001 compared to 18,400 last year.

Its new Terrorist Finance Team will examine suspicious transactions for terrorist connections.