January 17 2017
This month marks the second anniversary of the deadly attacks in Paris, when terrorists Said and Cherif Kouachi attacked the Charlie Hebdo satirical magazine on January 7, 2015 and when Amedy Coulibaly, a friend of the Kouachi brothers gunned down innocent grocery shoppers and held 15 others hostage in the Hyper Cacher attack. Together, the three had amassed an arsenal of weapons worth €25,000. These included rifles, rocket launchers, grenades, and tear gas canisters.
The story of the terrorist attacks has been well publicized around the world; but the method the perpetrators used to finance their weapons is less known. How did these terrorists pay for their weapons?According to Next Inpact News and Euipo, a report published by the French Union of Manufacturers (UNIFAB) on Counterfeiting and Terrorism, “counterfeiting is now a preferred mode of financing of terrorist groups, which organize the production and distribution of fake products to power their operations”