(CNN)—The Islamic State in Iraq and Syria has crude, stomach-turning tactics when it comes to dealing with its enemy, but experts say that its moneymaking methods are highly sophisticated, especially for such a new terror group.
Here's a look at how ISIS has made (and taken) millions:
Oil production and smuggling
ISIS makes between $1 million and $2 million each day from oil sales, numerous sources tell CNN. The oil comes mostly from refineries and wells that ISIS controls in northern Iraq and northern Syria.
The militants smuggle oil into southern Turkey, for example, and sell it to people who desperately need it just to carry on some semblance of everyday life.
The United States-led coalition fighting ISIS has repeatedly targeted ISIS oil assets in an effort to, in part, damage this arm of the group's financial system.
ISIS is estimated to produce about 44,000 barrels a day in Syria and 4,000 barrels a day in Iraq, according to Foreign Policy. A Kurdish newspaper has published the names of people involved with ISIS and its oil enterprise, the magazine reported.
Some on the list were associated with oil smuggling under former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, Foreign Policy said, as were those associated with a Toyota branch in Irbil that sells ISIS trucks.
Through its oil operations, ISIS appears to be trying to establish a self-sufficient state in the "Sunni triangle" in west and north Iraq, said Luay al-Khatteeb, founder and director of the Iraq Energy Institute.
Today, ISIS controls approximately 6 million people in Iraq and Syria, he said, and "that is a lot of people who need fuel."
Ransoms from kidnappings
In 2012, the U.S. Treasury Department estimated that al Qaeda and its affiliates had accumulated $120 million from ransoms over the previous eight years.
ISIS was once aligned with al Qaeda. The two groups are thought to operate separately but share similarities.
A 2014 New York Times investigation found that since 2008, al Qaeda and its affiliates had received $125 million from ransoms, including $66 million in 2013.
A Swedish company reportedly paid $70,000 to save an employee whom ISIS abducted.
Though officials publicly deny paying ransoms, the French purportedly have a policy of negotiating with militant groups to free its citizens. ISIS kidnapped Nicolas Henin, Pierre Torres, Edouard Elias and Didier François, in 2013 in Syria. They were released in April 2014, CNN national security analyst Peter Bergen said in a report that asked whether paying ransoms is a wise strategy.
The United States has a policy of not doing that, and the recent executions of U.S. and other Western ISIS hostages have sparked debate over whether that should change. ISIS demanded hundreds of millions of dollars for American journalist James Foley, said Philip Balboni, the CEO of GlobalPost, the outlet for which Foley freelanced.
ISIS beheaded Foley and released a video of the slaying.
The terrorists also told the Japanese government to pay a $200 million ransom to free two Japanese citizens. Japan did not negotiate, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said. ISIS slaughtered the men.
Looting and selling stolen artifacts and antiquities
ISIS allows locals to dig at ancient sites as long as those people give ISIS a percentage of the monetary value of anything found, according to a September 2014 New York Times opinion piece written by three people who had recently returned from southern Turkey and interviewed people who live and work in ISIS-controlled territory.
ISIS' system of profiteering from antiquities thieving is very complicated, the three said, adding that for some areas along the Euphrates River, ISIS leaders encourage semiprofessional field crews to dig. ...
Rest of story at CNN
