Somalis boycott banks for not working with Hawala businesses

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Dozens of Somalis close Wells Fargo accounts to protest bank's refusal to work with money-transfer businesses

Every month, Shukri Hassan took about $300 of the money she earned as a compliance officer for a money-transmitting business and sent it to her mother, Amina, in the Somali capital of Mogadishu.

The money is a godsend to someone in a country gripped by famine, with virtually no functioning government, and where jobs are few.

But since the start of the year, Hassan, 24, of Minneapolis has been unable to send money to her mother. The last bank involved with the international transfers got spooked by the conviction of two Rochester, Minn., women who sent money to the terrorist group al-Shabaab and dropped the business last month.

On Friday, Hassan joined about 100 others outside a Wells Fargo bank branch just off Lake Street in Minneapolis, protesting that bank's refusal to help the Somali money-transfer businesses, known as hawalas.

"I will freeze here before my family dies of hunger," said Hassan, shivering in the 14-degree weather.

As the group marched and chanted "Haa waa karnaa" - Somali for "Yes we can" - some entered the bank, one at a time, to close their Wells Fargo accounts in protest. Eric Fought, a spokesman for Minnesotans for a Fair Economy, which helped organize the rally, said they didn't have a count on how many closed their accounts, but said it was "at least several dozen."

Minnesota is home to an estimated 32,000 Somalis. The U.S. Department of the Treasury estimates Somalis in the U.S. send almost $100 million a year to people in Somalia.

It was the only income many residents of the war-scarred African country got, said Sadik Warfa of Minneapolis, who was at the protest and said he sent about $400 a month to his mother-in-law.

"It means life and death to her," he said. "If I don't send money, she can't survive. She has no way of getting any money. We can't close the lifeline. The whole economy depends on it."

Staci Schiller, a spokeswoman for Wells Fargo in Sioux Falls, S.D., said the bank stopped transmitting money for hawalas in 2008. Asked why, she replied, "It's not really something we discuss. It's proprietary. We made the business decision and we stand by it."

On Wednesday, Abdirahman Muse, an activist in the Somali community, wrote Wells Fargo and asked for a meeting to discuss ways the company might be able to work with hawalas again.

"It's a huge crisis for our community. We're not talking about numbers. We're talking about real people suffering," he said as he stood outside the bank. "We're giving Wells Fargo an opportunity to do the right thing."

Sunrise Community Banks of St. Paul was the last major financial institution making the electronic transfers for the hawalas. Last month, it said it was dropping the service.

A spokesman for the company did not return a call Friday. In the past, bank officials feared they could get into trouble by inadvertently violating government rules aimed at stopping the financing of terrorists.

In October, a jury in Minneapolis convicted Amina Farah Ali, 35, and Hawo Mohamed Hassan, 64, of conspiracy to provide material support to al-Shabaab, a terrorist group waging guerrilla war against Somalia's fledgling U.N.-backed transitional government.

Money transmitting is closely monitored and hawalas must keep detailed records, testimony at trial showed. The names of the intended recipients are checked against the Treasury Department's lengthy list of Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons.

If the recipient's name is on the list, the transfer is rejected, witnesses testified.

Federal prosecutors showed that to get around that, Ali, or people acting for her, sent the money to fictitious names she'd prearranged with her al-Shabaab contact. From September 2008 to July 2009, they sent $8,608 to al-Shabaab.

The women await sentencing.

The United Nations doesn't know how much money Somalis abroad contribute to the terrorist group but believes it is relatively minor. In a July report, the U.N. said the main sources for al-Shabaab's estimated annual income of $70 million to $100 million were taxes, extortion, commerce, trade and aid from other governments.

Those at the rally said they decried extremism and terrorism, but some said they believed Somalis were being singled out because of the federal convictions.

One protester, Hersi Suleiman, noted banks have been involved in mortgage fraud but few have gotten out of the mortgage business, yet they express fears of getting into trouble for transmitting money to Somalia.

"The banks talk about 'risk,' but they won't tell us what the risk is," said Suleiman, who works at a hawala in Chicago. "Let's sit down and see what the risks are they're talking about. Ever since the hawalas exist, no bank lost a dime, no bank has ever been charged, but they talk about risk."

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