US Disrupts Three Cyber-Enabled Terror Campaigns

The US government has made its largest ever seizure of cryptocurrency associated with terrorism after three alleged cyber-enabled terrorist financing campaigns were dismantled. 

The global disruption of campaigns involving Hamas’s military wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, al-Qaeda and Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) was announced yesterday by the Department of Justice. 

Each group was allegedly found to have used cryptocurrency and social media to raise their online profile and attract donations to fund their terror campaigns. In accordance with judicially authorized warrants, US authorities seized millions of dollars, over 300 cryptocurrency accounts, four websites and four Facebook pages.

In 2019, Al-Qassam Brigades allegedly posted a call for Bitcoin donations to fund its terror campaign on its social media page. The request was then made via the group’s official websites, alqassam.net, alqassam.ps and qassam.ps.

Included on their websites was a video claiming that benefactors could send money anonymously by using unique Bitcoin addresses generated for each individual donor. However, the IRS, HSI and FBI agents were able to track and seize all 150 cryptocurrency accounts that allegedly laundered funds to and from the al-Qassam Brigades’ accounts.

“While these individuals believe they operate anonymously in the digital space, we have the skill and resolve to find, fix and prosecute these actors under the full extent of the law,” said acting United States attorney Michael Sherwin.  

A second campaign run by al-Qaeda and affiliated terrorist groups allegedly solicited cryptocurrency donations via a Bitcoin money laundering network operated using Telegram channels and other social media platforms.

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