Finance committee  It was set up apparently by U.S. naval intelligence as a special experiment. It's been used to keep dissidents in touch with each other in the west and allow them to invade the controls put upon them by their government. Like a lot of things, it originated as an intelligence tool and as a piece of information interaction that benefited western desires to change the world.

Finance committee  Oh, okay. Was that a good enough explanation?

Finance committee  It's exactly the same; it's just very difficult to access.

Finance committee  Germany, the Netherlands, the European Police College, and the new British College of Policing all have new models that are worth looking at.

Finance committee  Well, we have just changed our whole operational system. We have introduced the National Crime Agency, and that is taking a partnership approach, an approach to partner universities, the private sector, and other agencies. There is a whole new set of ideas coming down. One of the things we are worried about is....

Finance committee  We know that in the areas where the al Qaeda offshoots and the Islamic State operate, one of the ways in which they fund the operation is by asking for a per cent of turnover from the individual businesses within those areas, and there are teams of accountants who go into the businesses and work out what their annual turnover is.

Finance committee  Sure.

Finance committee  Okay, how about “no”.

Finance committee  That's quite correct. The international terrorist organizations are encouraging individuals to plan their own solo raids. These need very little funding indeed. The smaller groups have been instructed to engage in credit card fraud, theft of debit cards, ATM fraud, skimming of bills in restaurants and garages—very low-level white-collar crime.

Finance committee  Yes, but if you look at Europol's threat assessment of two to three years ago, they thought that organized crime, European organized crime, was buying some of the smaller refineries, and it is possible that some of it's going to those smaller refineries to become petrol products.

Finance committee  It is being sold to a number of different clients. Some of it is being sold just across the border into Turkey to individual purchasers and individual garages, but it actually appears to be heading up towards the Black Sea on tankers—tankers travelling up the road—and it appears to be getting onto boats and crossing the Black Sea, possibly to the Romanian port of Constanta.

Finance committee  Thank you, Chair. The first point I'd make is that if you really want a longer presentation from me, I did a lecture tour of Australia a couple of years ago and you can see a YouTube video of my doing a 40-minute presentation, with jokes, on the mix of terrorist financing, but I'm going to spare you the jokes and the 40 minutes.