A WhatsApp group chat with 532 members was used to move hundreds of millions of euros in cash worldwide with no paper trail, funding organised crime and extremism, according to an investigation by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), whose members include the BBC. The chat, called "Traders of Greater Europe", arranged cross-border cash transfers using the ancient hawala system, including payments from Brussels that reached Islamic State group militants in Syria, as well as transfers to British cities such as Birmingham and London. The case matters because it exposes a vast, largely invisible financial network operating entirely outside conventional banking oversight, one investigators say was far more extensive than initially suspected.

The chat contained over 82,000 messages sent between February and December 2022 and was uncovered by Belgian investigating magistrate Vincent Guerra after police arrested Abu Adam, head of a Brussels-based network, whose phone held the group chat along with 6,000 photos of €5 notes and 6,000 photos of identity cards, evidence suggesting he alone processed at least 12,000 transactions. The group was reserved for transfers over €5,000, with hawaladar brokers settling accounts between themselves rather than moving physical cash or leaving an electronic trail. The investigation began as a terror-financing probe, which led to a 2024 Belgian court case convicting six money launderers, but Guerra said it revealed a far larger, professional underground banking system also linked to people smuggling and drug trafficking; hawala itself is legal in the UK if brokers are registered with HMRC, though illegal in most of the EU.