The ISIS terror group has increasingly been seen using new Toyota pickup trucks, and now U.S. counter-intelligence officials are investigating why.
ABC News reported this week that Toyota recently "briefed" the Treasury Department's Terror Financing unit "on Toyota’s supply chains in the Middle East and the procedures that Toyota has in place to protect supply chain integrity."
Ed Lewis, Toyota’s Washington-based director of public policy and communications, said the company has a "strict policy to not sell vehicles to potential purchasers who may use or modify them for paramilitary or terrorist activities."
Lukman Faily, the Iraqi Ambassador to the U.S., said his government believes ISIS has acquired "hundreds" of "brand new" Toyotas.
"This is a question we’ve been asking our neighbors," he said. "How could these brand new trucks . . . these four wheel drives, hundreds of them — where are they coming from?"
The Toyota Land Cruiser and Toyota Hilux, an overseas version of the Toyota Tacoma, appear to be two models in particular that ISIS may have purchased in bulk.
"I don’t think Toyota’s trying to intentionally profit from it, but they are on notice now and they should do more," said Mark Wallace, a former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, who is CEO of the Counter Extremism Project.
"They should be able to figure it out . . . how are these trucks getting there. I think they should disclose that, put a stop to that, and put policies and procedures in places that are real and effective to make sure that we don’t see videos of ISIS using Toyota trucks in the future."
Toyota said it is not aware of any Iraqi dealership selling to the terror group, and that it stopped selling its vehicles in Syria altogether in 2012.
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