On 22 April 2026, the Counter-Terrorism Committee Executive Directorate (CTED) hosted an Insight Briefing by Adam Rousselle, an investigative analyst specializing in illicit and terrorist finance, on the topic of “Trust Networks and Parallel Financial Systems: How Propaganda Ecosystems Enable Terrorist Financing”. The briefing explored how terrorists manage to sustain their financing systems when formal financial institutions are inaccessible.
CTED’s Coordinator on Countering the Financing of Terrorism, Svetlana Martynova, highlighted the joint work of CTED with the Financial Action Task Force on examining the relevant trends, including in the context of the FATF 2025 Comprehensive Update on Terrorism Financing Risks. Ms. Martynova noted that for terrorist organizations, propaganda is often both a core activity and a significant expenditure. It serves multiple purposes, including expanding their support base, legitimizing their actions, and intimidating adversaries. In many cases, propaganda also aims to support financing efforts by recruiting donors and disseminating instructions on how to contribute financially. These finance-oriented communication campaigns may be carried out through a variety of channels, including social media platforms, messaging applications, traditional media, and in-person outreach.
In his presentation, Mr. Rousselle explained that terrorist financial activity is often only the visible endpoint of a much broader system. Long before funds are raised or transferred, networks are formed, relationships are built, and trust is established. In this sense, terrorist financing begins not with money, but with the conditions that make money move. At the center of this system lies a largely overlooked layer: the construction of credibility and connection. Through repeated interaction, shared narratives, and social validation, individuals and groups establish who can be trusted and who cannot. This process determines which actors are considered legitimate enough to coordinate, fundraise, or facilitate operations. Without this foundation, financial activity cannot scale or sustain itself.
Digital platforms have transformed how this trust is built. What may appear as propaganda or ideological messaging often serves a deeper function. Across social media, messaging applications, and online publications, content is used not only to persuade, but to create relationships between actors who would otherwise remain disconnected. Carefully produced media soliciting donations for terrorist groups —consistent branding, structured layouts, and professional visuals—signals competence and stability to their supporters. These signals reduce uncertainty and make targeted audiences more likely to engage, support, and ultimately contribute financially.
Over time, these systems have evolved from more centralized structures to increasingly decentralized and distributed models. In earlier configurations, hierarchy enforced coordination. Today, as networks fragment and spread across regions and platforms, trust replaces hierarchy as the primary organizing mechanism. This shift has significant implications. Decentralized systems are more resilient, harder to disrupt, and capable of regenerating even after targeted interventions. When one part of the network is removed, the underlying trust relationships often persist and reconfigure elsewhere.
Current counter-terrorism financing efforts remain largely focused on detecting transactions after they occur. While necessary, this approach is inherently reactive. It addresses the symptoms rather than the system itself. By the time financial activity becomes visible, the underlying network is already established and capable of adapting to disruption. As long as that network remains intact, new channels and methods can replace those that are removed.
Addressing this challenge requires a shift in focus. Rather than concentrating solely on financial flows, efforts must move upstream to identify and understand the systems that enable them. This means mapping how trust is formed, how it spreads across platforms, and how it connects actors within and across networks. It also requires integrating behavioral, financial, and network data into a more coherent analytical framework, allowing earlier identification of risk before transactions occur.
Facilitated by CTED’s Political Analysis and Research Unit, this briefing is part of CTED’s work on identifying emerging issues, trends and developments relating to countering terrorism, pursuant to Security Council resolutions 2395 (2017) and 2617 (2021), in close cooperation with academia, think tanks, and international, regional, and subregional organizations.
Additional Resources:
- Propaganda as Financial Infrastructure: How Islamic State and al-Qaeda Media Ecosystems Enable Terrorist Finance
- Closing the Enforcement Gap: AI, Illicit Liquidity, and the Next Phase of Counter-Terrorist Finance
- Combating Islamic State Finance: West Africa and the Sahel
- Combating Islamic State Finance: Central Asia and Around the World
- Combating Islamic State Finance: Somalia and the Pan-African Nexus