Although there was no evidence so far that any Malaysian NPO was involved in this, he said, the authorities were keeping an eye on money being channelled to suspected NPOs elsewhere.

“NPOs now are being used for terrorism financing. It is definitely disheartening for us to see establishments meant for benevolent acts being manipulated by terrorists for terrorist activities.

“The funds received by these NPOs are meant for positive activities but some of the NPO leaders may be misusing the funds. This is being monitored by the authorities.”

Zahid said this at the 3rd Counter- Terrorism Financing Summit (CTF Summit), hosted by Malaysia at the Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) premises today.

“There are no NPOs that are involved in terrorism financing in the country but in other countries, it may have happened. We have readied ourselves so that this does not happen in our country,” he added.

He said the government was also monitoring funding that was channeled through other means than the banking system.

“We have systems and mechanisms to track these activities with the help of Bank Negara and the police.

“If we receive information from any country about NPOs that channel money to terrorists, we will add them into our suspects list. We will take action based on the laws that we have against any individual from our country who channels the money to such an organisation.”

Also speaking at the summit was BNM governor Muhammad Ibrahim, Australian Minister for Justice Michael Keenan and Indonesian Coordinating Minister for Political, Legal and Security Affairs Wiranto.

The CTF Summit was founded by the financial intelligence units of Australia and Indonesia. The previous summits were held in Sydney in 2015 and in Bali in 2016.