Extremist groups like al Qaeda are using mafia-type methods to launder funds and hide their financial footprints, including through diamond trading in West Africa, a regional U.S. diplomat said Tuesday. Richard Allan Roth, the U.S. ambassador to Senegal, said money laundering was a thriving criminal enterprise, whether it was through the illegal sale of diamonds from Sierra Leone, prostitution in the Balkans or heroin sales in America. “But the chiefs of organized crime are not the only ones and we now see that the leaders of global terrorism use similar methods to circulate flows of hidden money to finance and disguise their activities,” he said. Full Story