Project CRAAFT: Counter Terrorist Financing
Project CRAAFT is a research and community-building initiative designed to build stronger, more coordinated international counter terrorist financing response.
Terrorist groups rely on money to plan, recruit, and carry out attacks. Countering terrorist financing (CTF) is therefore a critical part of preventing terrorism.
CRAAFT (Collaboration, Research and Analysis Against the Financing of Terrorism) is an initiative dedicated to strengthening global CTF efforts. CRAAFT brings together researchers, policymakers, private sector, and civil society to better understand how terrorist organisations adapt their financing methods and how international partners can respond.
Terrorists use a wide range of methods to raise and move these funds, from traditional banking to the abuse of charities, criminal markets, and new financial technologies.
The project provides evidence-based research on how technological advances might influence terrorist financing, exploring both potential risks and opportunities. It examines the role of fintech firms, online payment services, crowdfunding platforms, social media, and virtual assets, among others.
CRAAFT connects academic research with the operational needs of practitioners, helping governments and private firms improve their ability to detect, disrupt, and prevent terrorist financing.
Aims and objectives
CRAAFT is guided by three main objectives:
- Reaffirm CTF as a security priority: Revitalise counter-terrorist financing as a core security priority, moving beyond box-ticking compliance with FATF standards.
- Specify risk: Provide targeted research to focus on real vulnerabilities related to terrorist abuse of new financial technologies, avoiding reactive policymaking and private sector fatigue.
- Broaden to threat finance: Expand CTF to cover malign state influence, extremist movements, and sabotage with financial dimensions.
Sponsors
Years: 2025-2028
Collaborative Responses to the Role of New Technologies in Terrorist Financing is funded by the NATO Science for Peace and Security (SPS) Programme
CRAAFT I
CRAAFT I was the first phase of the project, funded by the European Commission. It combined research and practitioner engagement to strengthen counter-terrorist financing across the EU and its neighbourhood, creating a foundation of insights and networks that continue to inform policy today.
The project explored how terrorist groups adapt their financing methods and produced a series of reports and briefings. Core areas of research included:
- The financing of lone actors and small cells.
- The intersection of criminal economies and terrorist financing.
- Abuse of non-profit organisations and regulatory unintended consequences.
- International cooperation and public-private partnerships in CTF.
Alongside research, CRAAFT I delivered technical trainings across the EU and its neighbourhood. These sessions brought together public authorities, financial institutions, and civil society to share expertise and build practical capacity.
The project culminated with RAFT22 (Reassessing the Financing of Terrorism in 2022), a high-level conference in Brussels that gathered policymakers, experts, and practitioners to reflect on new threats, from far-right extremism financing to the challenges posed by emerging technologies.
Workshops
Reassessing the Financing of Terrorism in 2025
RAFT 2025 brought together key stakeholders from across the public and private sectors to examine how technological advancements are reshaping the terrorism financing landscape and to discuss counter-terrorism financing strategies in the face of rapidly evolving threats.
Reassessing the Financing of Terrorism in 2022
RAFT 2022 brought together leading voices in tech, finance and security alongside high-profile representatives of the European counter-terrorism effort to discuss the past and present of counter terrorism financing in Europe, and to chart the way forward.
For information on in-country workshops, please visit the CRAAFT project website.