The Blacklist Project
Ofehe is not the only Dutchman on the World Check list. OneWorld and the Argos radio program handed out a copy of the blacklist of the end of 2014. In total, more than 2.2 million people and organizations, of which 12,267 had a link with the Netherlands.
People are mistakenly branded as criminals or terrorists
We were taken to the World Check list via UK online security specialist Chris Vickery. Journalists in six countries have examined the data together for five months. Today, OneWorld publishes the results together with Argos (NPO Radio 1), The Times (UK), The Intercept (USA), The Time (Belgium), La Repubblica (Italy) and NDR / Süddeutsche Zeitung (Germany), with the support of Journalismfund .eu.
When we broke the list, we discovered that many people were wrongly mistaken or branded, based on false information, even as criminals or terrorists. Without knowing it.
Miss Mummypenny
After the death of Nigerian dictator Sani Abacha, it was discovered that he had robbed billions from the state treasury and had fled to various accounts abroad. Rumor at the Swiss banks where he had a part of the spoil: should they now meet more rules to prevent money from coming from their criminal activities?
The South African entrepreneur David Leppan jumped into this hole. He designed a ‘early warning system’ for financial institutions. He and his wife invested £ 40,000, – savings, of which they paid their first employee: Leppan’s retired mother. In 2000, World Check was a fact.
“My mother is the fastest typist I know,” Leppan said in 2014 in an interview with The Edge Singapore magazine. “She’s very curious.”
Reintegrating housewives are incredibly driven to find the bad guys
With the terrorist attack of 9/11 in America, World-Check received a huge boost. The company bundled all sanctions lists worldwide, allowing banks to check with a single push of which they had to freeze the bills. World-Check wanted to offer some extra, and so they also took the names of people linked to the media in terrorism.
Miss Mummypenny, as the mother of Leppan was called jokingly, sent the ever-expanding research department. In 2011, World-Check 500 employees included data about 240 countries. Particularly reintegrant mothers, according to Leppan in The Edge Singapore, “Women between the ages of 45 and 65 who return to the workplace. That’s formidable workforce, incredibly driven to find information about debut guys. “With 400,000 names in the database, World Check was sold to Thomson Reuters.
“Better Safe than Sorry”
Anno 2017, World-Check is used by 6,000 companies, organizations and government departments in more than 170 countries. 49 of the 50 largest banks in the world have a subscription to World Check, including ING, Rabobank and ABN Amro. Only a quarter of the people have been added as a result of listing on a sanction list. The rest has been clashed by World-Check itself.
49 of the 50 largest banks in the world use World-Check, including ING, Rabobank and ABN Amro
Banks have been reporting suspicious transactions since 1994, says Yvonne Willemsen, head of security affairs of the Dutch Association of Banks. “But the scope of the law has become wider. “Now the rules also apply to insurers, notaries, lawyers, casinos, credit card organizations, large-scale merchants … and the content has been expanded. In the past, the focus was on people who reported a big bag of cash at the desk. Nowadays there is an all-crime approach. ”
Two laws apply: the law to prevent money laundering and terrorist financing, and the sanction law. “That first act means that you need to know your customers very well and that you have to do all kinds of checks to estimate the risks that this customer brings,” said Willemsen. “The second law states that you must ensure that the accounts of persons listed as terrorists on sanctions list must be frozen.”
From a powerpoint presentation about World Check, published on Wikileaks
“World-Check helps the financial industry to meet those legal obligations,” says political scientist Marieke de Goede. Since 2001, she has been investigating terrorism financing regulations. “The trouble is that it is unclear who oversees World-Check. The banks are under the supervision of the Dutch bank. But World-Check? “Everyone points to each other, concludes The Good.
World-Check is in small print that banks and other customers themselves have to do research. The banks say they are not research organizations, and point to the government, and to the customer. If there is incorrect information in World Check, you must click to correct it. The government points out that banks must be transparent to their customers and should tell what information they base their choices on.
“We need to make a risk assessment,” says Willemsen of the Dutch Association of Banks. Accounts of persons listed in World Check as PEP – politically exposed person are checked extra often. “Our supervisor looks very good at assessing risks,” she continues. “I must have a very good story if I make a payment to someone identified as a terrorist by World Check.”
Babies, a crime reporter and a potato farmer
For example, banks may refuse payments and block accounts based on a commercial list.
We have studied the Dutch listings on the list in the last five months and we were shocked. The database is from obscure sources and outdated information.
First, there is the category of PEPs, politically exposed persons. These are high politicians and – because dictators have found that accounts of fellow citizens use money to lock away – their family members. That is why the mother of Prime Minister Mark Rutte is on the list, and the spouse of State Secretary Sharon Dijksma. But also Mark Rutte’s father was on the list, while died in 1988. And we see that an enthusiast has added a load of children in one day. The source: The Babies website of famous Dutch and Flemish people.
The mother of Mark Rutte is on the list, and several babies from the Dutch parliament
And not only national politicians are on the list. Drivers of even the smallest municipalities in our country have been placed on the list. The entire family of Jan-Eric Geersing, a trader in potato potatoes, is also in WorldCheck because he became a member of the state in Flevoland for the Christian unions in 2004. “I? Of all the Dutch? Then I’m very high in the ranking, while that is totally insane. ”
Crime reporter Peter R. de Vries is also a PEP. Because he founded the Party of Justice, Power and Progress in 2005, together with Klaas Wilting and Jan Nagel (also on the list). The Lower House never reached them, but World-Check never took the trouble to remove them from the list.
Politically colored
Less innocent is the category ‘CRIME’. The real criminals, such as Willem Holleeder, Dino Soerel and a load of mafia bosses But Peter Petrus van Wanrooij also says that he bought two XTC pills in 2004 in a chic nightclub in Singapore. Not smart, but is he just such a risk to the bank as the main players in the liquidation process? And how would Guus Hiddink find it if he finds that he is also classified in that category?
310 Dutch people are labeled terrorists
And then there are the 310 Dutchmen who are labeled terrorists, including environmentalist Sunny Ofehe. The Dutch state only identifies 118 people as terrorists, and 99 of them have been added after 2014 (and are therefore not in the World Check List copy we have watched).
People are added based on news reports, for example, if there has been a major arrest warrant. If it appears that people have been unjustly arrested, they will not be taken to remove them from the World Check database.
Others have been added based on politicized information. For example, many Sri Lankan people have been added as Tamil terrorists after reports from the Sri Lankan government. Terrorist PKKs arrived in the list following messages from Turkey. And while the president of Eritrea and his right hand (who are charged with crimes against humanity) are only referred to as “politicians,” opposition parties in the system are Terrorist. In addition, the text says: “They want to destabilize the regime of Eritrea and install a transit government.”
Impact on the Muslim community
The journalists from other countries that participated in The Blacklist Project encountered similar results. For example, The Time indicates that the Belgian Pascal C. has been identified as a possible member of a group sending Jihad fighters to Iraq. There is no way to read that he was released by the Brussels Correctional Court in March 2010. “The source: an obscure anti-terrorism blog.
Assistance organizations and activists
Striking is the amount of aid organizations on the World Check List. Among other things, we find Greenpeace, MSF, PETA, Rainforest Action Network, Tibetan Youth Congress, Human Rights Watch, Cordaid and Foundation Doing.
Activists are also being monitored extensively. Everyone around Wikileaks is on the list.
Whistleblower Chelsea Manning is classified in the category CRIME. Occupy Wall Street is mentioned because of the link with the hackers group Anonymous.
We have indications that aid agencies in particular may encounter problems with transferring help money to partner organizations. Is this indeed the case?
We are keen to try out concrete examples so that we can start a follow-up.
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Two Afghans who were wrongly sent to the Guantanamo prison are on the list. Haji Faiz Mohammed was 70 years old when he was arrested, and demented. Naqib Hullah was 14 years old when he was kidnapped and raped by the Taliban, then to land in Guantanamo. And after all the misery they are now on the World Check list, reports La Repubblica.
The Intercept discovered that Ihsan Bagbi, professor of Islam Studies, is considered terrorist based on an extreme right-wing website. “The World Check list reminds me of the first years after 9/11, when every muslim who was active within the community ended up on some list and was always detained and fooled.” That’s still so List is, globally, he finds’ very worrying. I do not know what the impact of this is on other Muslims. Are bank accounts denied or closed? Loans declined? This is very worrying. ”
In the United States, 1300 residents are referred to as terrorists by World Check. When it comes to Muslims, right-extremist websites are often the only source.
World Check: “We have a privacy statement”
“World-Check has a clear privacy statement on the website. It also says how to approach us if you think the information in our database is inaccurate, “said David Crundwell, senior vice president of corporate affairs of Thomson Reuters, in response to the long list of questions and findings we received from the Organization submitted. “Unfortunately, due to Data Privacy Rules, we can not answer all the questions, but if we use information from blogs, we will clearly add that. This is done by researchers specializing in subjects such as sanctions, terrorism and organized crime. ”
According to Crundwell, it is important to mention that “admission to World Check does not mean that someone is guilty of a crime. Therefore, in each profile, the accuracy of the information needs to be verified with the person in question before action (such as closing a bank account, editing.) is taken. ”
Finsbury Park Mosque vs. World-Check
Can this all be? No, according to a recent lawsuit in England. The Finsbury Park Mosque (unfortunately known by the attack on mosque prisoners a week ago) spent a lawsuit against World-Check last year. In 2014, the accounts of the mosque were suddenly frozen. They had no idea why. As early as 2005, the mosque underwent a thorough reorganization. All contacts with jihadist ministers were discontinued. In fact, the mosque invested consciously in close contact with the neighborhood. Meals are offered to homeless people and meetings organized against racism. At the last meeting there were also a Jewish Rabbi and a fighter of gay rights.
BBC News revealed that the mosque, despite all of these changes, was still referred to as the “terrorist” in the World Check database. Therefore, HSBC had closed the bank account, and so other banks denied the mosque as a customer.
“We sent World-Check first a summation,” explains Farooq Bawja, a lawyer of the mosque. “World-Check denied something wrong. ‘We are behind our sources’. Eventually they offered us a small correction. “The mosque did not agree with that. They brought the case to the High Court. “It was not about the money. It was not about their ego but for the fact that they were wrongly accused of misunderstandings. “World-Check arranged and paid £ 10,000. – More important, the apologies.
Fine print
“People do not keep quiet on a daily basis, but a bank account is so important for your functioning to society,” says professor Marieke de Goede. “Without bank account you can not receive a salary and also no payment. You can not close insurance. “And if you can not make payments, even basic services like gas, light and water can be closed.
There are about 20 legal cases against World Check
“Finsbury Park Mosque Against World Check was a test case,” says lawyer Bawja. “The first case of this kind. Now that’s the profit we are going to work immediately on similar cases. There are about 20 lawsuits against World Check. ”
“A problem of World Check is that the list is secret,” says De Goede. People do not know they are in World Check. The small print of the contract states that banks can not tell people that they are on the list. And if banks pass on an unusual transaction to the Police Intelligence Unit, this must remain secret – in the context of any investigative investigation. The Good: “You can not really get access unless you have a good lawyer. It’s not always clear on which World-Check puts people on the list, or how they deal with complaints. “One thing is clear: you will not get it from now on.
Help, how do I get from the list?
Do you want to know if you are on the World Check list, or ask if Thomson Reuters adjusts your data?
Request Details via the form on the World Check website.
Take action? Aleid Wolfsen is the head of the Authority for Personnel Registration, the body which oversees the privacy of the citizens in the Netherlands. “I’ve never heard of World Check,” he says in a first response. “I did not know that this commercial database is being used by banks in the Netherlands.” Even though World Check is officially in England, in May 2018 a new European privacy act will be introduced which will allow the Dutch Personal Data Authority to handle or pass complaints. “Everyone has the right to know what an instance has about you, be it the government or a private company. Banks must be transparent, just ask! ”
Only when Wolfsen gets concrete reports, he can launch a World Check check. Do you have problems with your bank, and do you think it is caused by information that is incorrect or that is illegally obtained? Then sign in to the Personal Data Authority. Wolfsen: “We are highly recommended. It’s not about small things: these are fundamental rights. We are in favor of the fundamental rights of citizens. ”
“Strikes are cheap”
In the fight against terrorism we take a lot of love: extra surveillance, sometimes even an unjustified arrest. But what if all those measures do not even help?
“World-Check consists mainly of many collected newspaper reports,” says terrorist researcher Jelle van Buuren of Leiden University. “It’s the question of what the value of that information is.”
With the help of the VPRO research desk, we analyzed when known terrorists have been on the World Check list. This was only after they had committed an attack. If the goal is to prevent attacks, then the warning in World Check will be late, concludes Van Buuren. “It’s selling baked air.”
Such an assessment as in Nice or Berlin can not be avoided by monitoring transactions
In addition, the terrorist attacks that have been committed in recent years are very cheap, says Van Buuren. “For a stop with a hired truck – think of Nice or Berlin – you do not have to collect a lot of money first.” Such an assessment can not be avoided by monitoring transactions.
“All of the additional reports by World-Check create a lot of unnecessary work,” says researcher Tom Keatinge from the independent security think tank RUSI. “All false reports from banks to authorities looking for terrorist activities.” There they do not see the forest through the trees anymore.
By: Sanne Terlingen, Huub Jaspers, Eveline Lubbers
This is a google translation of the Dutch version of the report originally published by a Dutch investigative online platform, OneWorld
Editor’s Note: We have reproduced two earlier articles written by our anchorman, Joe Ogbodu way back in 2011 and 2013 at the peak of the case and after Sunny Ofehe was discharged of trumped-up terrorism charges. We asked one big question about whether Ofehe was going to sue or not and now we think this would just open up a fresh litigations. In a couple of days we are going to make inquiries if other Nigerians are wrongly listed on this so-called commercial watch list.
