February 27, 2015 | Quote

Transfer Denied: The Hidden Costs of Washington’s War Against al-Shabab


The U.S. government could also create its own link to Somalia by using the Federal Reserve Bank of New York as a middleman to make the wire transfers. But Juan Zarate, a former senior Treasury Department official and counterterrorism expert who oversaw sanctions programs during President George W. Bush’s administration, said using the Fed would make for a difficult and, at best, short-term solution. For one, it would task the Fed with sorting out the good guys from the bad — a risk the U.S. central bank is likely unwilling to take.

Still, Zarate said, “the question of how you mitigate the risk of this is not going to go away.”

“So what is that long-term solution?” Zarate said. “The government has to help figure that out.”

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