JAKARTA: Generous Indonesians donating their spare change to the poor and needy are unwittingly helping finance deadly terror attacks and militant training camps in a scam that has netted big money for extremist groups.
"People can't tell the difference between these and other charity boxes," said Ghazali, 56, who now runs an Islamic boarding school and tries to deradicalise former extremists.With little outside funding, hardline Islamist groups depend on the charity box scam to pay for operations across Indonesia, the world's biggest Muslim-majority nation, which has suffered a series of hotel bombings and other attacks over the years.
Most Indonesian terror groups now rely"overwhelmingly" on domestic funding to pay for day-to-day operations, she said. Funds from illicit charity boxes have been traced to jihadist training camps in ultra-conservative Aceh province and the East Indonesia Mujahideen, a radical group blamed for beheading four Christian farmers on the island of Sulawesi last month AFP/FAJRIN RAHARJO
It has proved a dependable way for extremists to raise funds under the radar with one box raising about US$350 every six months or so, Ghazali said."There's no chance of bloodshed like in a robbery."
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