Hawala is an informal international Islamic money brokerage system with Shariah origins. It operates around the world, but exclusively in Islamic communities. It’s sort of like a Western Union system without any oversight.
It is also used by money launderers to move wealth outside of the view of law enforcement and intelligence agencies. Hawala is also used to transfer zakat payments. Because of these two salient facts, Jihadist terrorist organizations make extensive use of hawala.
Evidently, the Times Square bomber, Faisal Shahzad, was supported by the hawala system…
