Al Qaeda has secretly collected at least $125 million in kidnapping ransoms from European governments looking to buy back hostages from Africa and the Middle East, a report claimed Tuesday.
The hefty cash payments date back to 2008, including $66 million in the past year alone, according to the New York Times.
Despite official denials, the money comes “almost exclusively” from European governments that funnel it through a network of intermediaries, often disguising it as “development aid,” sources told the Times.
The paper also cited thousands of pages of internal al Qaeda documents that laid out the inner workings of its kidnapping racket.
Those documents were found last year in northern Mali by a Times reporter while on assignment for the Associated Press.
The scheme has been so successful that while kidnappers demanded about $200,000 per hostage in 2003, that amount has recently ballooned as high as $10 million.
The Times quoted Nasser al-Wuhayshi, leader of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, as saying that ransom money accounts for up to half his operating revenue.
“Kidnapping hostages is easy spoil, which I may describe as a profitable trade and a precious treasure,” wrote Wuhayshi, who also serves as No. 2 in al Qaeda’s central leadership.
Counterterrorism officials told the Times that al Qaeda uses the cash to pay for most of its recruitment, training and weapons.
Accounts from freed hostages reportedly suggest that the Islamic terror network’s three main affiliates in northern Africa, Yemen and Mali are working in concert and following shared, step-by-step protocols.
The terrorists have also “outsourced” the dirty work to criminal gangs that work on commission, while ransom demands are handled by negotiators who take a 10 percent cut.