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The US Justice Department (DOJ) seized more than $200,000 in cryptocurrency intended to benefit the militant group Hamas it said in a statement on March 27.
The cryptocurrency with a total value of $201,400 was traced to fundraising addresses allegedly controlled by Hamas and used to launder more than $1.5 million in digital assets since October 2024.
The laundering occurred through a series of “virtual currency exchanges and transactions by leveraging suspected financiers and over-the-counter brokers,” the DOJ said. The funds are currently held in a combination of at least 17 wallets.
In January 2024, the US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, along with corresponding organizations in the United Kingdom and Australia, announced sanctions against networks and facilitators of crypto transactions linked to Hamas. Those sanctions were built on US Treasury sanctions from October 2023.
In January 2024, three families of victims of the Hamas attack against Israel sued Binance and its former CEO Changpeng Zhao, alleging that the exchange had provided “substantial assistance” to terrorists. In oral arguments, a lawyer representing Binance claimed the exchange had “no special relationship [with] Hamas […].”
Binance has faced scrutiny from the US government over alleged shortcomings in its Anti-Money Laundering controls. The exchange settled with the DOJ for $4.3 billion in November 2023.
More regulation needed?
According to a December 2024 report by the Congressional Research Service, Hamas has allegedly sought cryptocurrency donations since at least 2019, although the “scale and effectiveness” of these efforts have been unclear.
Terrorist organizations using crypto for fundraising have increasingly drawn the attention of the US, with some officials questioning whether the industry needed more supervision or regulation to stop such behavior.
According to a 2023 Chainalysis report, terrorism financing accounts for a very small amount of crypto usage, with illegal groups sticking to using traditional, fiat-based methods to fund operations.
Magazine: Terrorism and the Israel-Gaza war have been weaponized to destroy crypto
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