Global Financial Services In Conflict Zones: Banking In Egypt, Libya, Syria, Somalia And Other Countries
This is putting a guerrilla army in the same league as warlords and terrorists.
"Operating outside the conventional monetary systems puts stressed consumers in the same league as warlords, terrorists and guerrilla armies seeking to receive money anonymously. That came home to Anna Therese Day when she recently tagged along with the Free Syrian Army and witnessed the power and violence that an unchecked banking system can bring when in the wrong hands.
“I traveled with foreign fighters who were responsible for bringing in cash to militia leaders to buy more arms internally on the black market,” Day said. “They went to Western Unions along the Syrian-Turkish border, and each took out cash that had been wired by financiers in the Gulf.”
The fighters would then enter Syria to deliver the money to the leaders of international networks, Day said. So the business of banking was reduced to its most elemental level."
A couple of paragraphs later it gets into the same territory Christopher Walken covers with the watch in Pulp Fiction.