ISIS' Source of Revenue Examined
WHITFIELD: All right, hello again, everyone, and thanks so much for joining us. I'm Fredricka Whitfield. Our top story, a U.S. special operations raid overnight in Syria overnight killed a key ISIS figure. U.S. officials tell CNN that Abu Sayyaf, a Tunisian citizen, was the equivalent of ISIS' chief financial officer, also involved in military operations. A source tells CNN that he may have had contact with ISIS leader Abu Bakr al Baghdadi. Sayyaf's wife was also captured in the raid. An official saying that she and Sayyaf were suspected to be involved in or have deep knowledge of ISIS hostage operations. ISIS operates all over the world, and to maintain those operations, it needs money. Last year alone the group made nearly a half a billion dollars. But where does that money come from? Here now is CNN's Miguel Marquez.</s>MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It's the best-funded terrorist organization in history. ISIS controls big territory in Syria and Iraq, and it runs its pillaging machine like a business to fund its ultimate goal -- one ginormous Islamic state. Let's follow the money. At its heart, ISIS is a criminal enterprise. In 2014 the U.S. Treasury Department says it made at least half a billion dollars from seizing banks in norther and western Iraq. But banks aren't the only target. ISIS fighters loot houses, they steal cars, chop them up for parts. They trade weapons and people. It's a revenue stream that thrives on territory. The more they control, the more they can steal. There's a reason ISIS has been compared to the mafia. It extorts protection money from the people it lords over. You want to move a truck down the highway? Pay a tax. You're want to move money out of your own back account? It will cost you. You're a farmer with 100 sheep? ISIS takes five. The extortion game earns it several million dollars every month. ISIS has made millions selling oil from fields it controls in Syria and Iraq, as much as $100 million in 2014. It's less now that the price of oil has fallen and the U.S. and its allies started bombing refineries. But ISIS doesn't need refineries to make money from oil. The unrefined crude it pumps out of the ground is worth plenty. ISIS fighters smuggle it in barrels across the border or in containers small enough to fit under a truck. A middleman buys it the crude or whatever ISIS has managed to refine and sells it on the black market. Kidnapping for ransom also big business. In 2014 ISIS made at least $20 million that way. The United States says it won't negotiate with terrorists, but some European countries do, and so do wealthy Arab families whose relatives are targeted. ISIS has taken sledgehammers to ancient artifacts, but it also makes money looting and selling stolen treasures. A giant sculpture of an Assyrian idol might be destroyed while a gold Babylonian coin is sold because the coin was never worshipped. And that's how ISIS makes its millions.</s>WHITFIELD: All right, joining me right now with more, CNN global affairs analyst Kimberly Dozier. Good to see you. So the significance of Abu Sayyaf's connections to ISIS' oil and gas operations really can't be overstated. As we just heard, that group earns millions of dollars because of black market oil or various ways. But can it bow that that kind of revenue is really what keeps this operation afloat?</s>KIMBERLY DOZIER, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Well, that kind of revenue is key to paying the ranks of recruits that have been coming in, thousands month by month, to Syria and to northern Iraq joining the cause. It also pays for weapons, ammunition, and for keeping the peace in the towns and cities that ISIS holds sway in. They have to -- you know, they hand out traffic tickets. They keep the lights on. They keep the water running. All of that needs money. So ISIS does need this constant influx of cash to keep its operations going. So if you get the guy who's been managing that money, he is the one who's been writing the checks to all those people. And that is part of what U.S. officials used as their key argument to President Obama, to say this is an intelligence-rich target. It's worth the risk.</s>WHITFIELD: And then on the black market, who is buying this oil, because it's not like you just buy enough for your vehicle or, you know, for fueling your home, but it has to be in sizeable quantities in order to make a dent, to really earn any money, right?</s>DOZIER: Well, yes and no. You've got a lot of local consumption in northern Iraq, in Syria. Large parts of that country are cut off from the outside world, and even in remote parts of Turkey. So you do have a ready source of people to sell this to. Now, but the more important part of this raid, I think, was his connections to military operations. They also believe that his wife was an active member of ISIS. So interrogating her, looking at the laptops and the cell phones that they got from the compound, that is intelligence they hope to exploit that may lead to future raids very soon by the U.S. or by its allies in this fight.</s>WHITFIELD: All right, Kimberly Dozier, thank you so much. Appreciate it.</s>DOZIER: Thank you.</s>WHITFIELD: And be sure to tune in to CNN tomorrow, 7:00 p.m. eastern time, to see Fareed Zakaria's CNN special "Blindsided, How ISIS Shook the World." Also coming up, just weeks after protests and rioting shook the city of Baltimore, the Preakness is getting under way. And there's new tensions over the Freddie Gray case.