The Justice Department has seized millions of dollars in digital currency that militant groups in the Middle East hoped to use to fund terrorist attacks, federal prosecutors announced Thursday.
The massive operation, described as the largest-ever seizure of cryptocurrency funds from terror groups, targeted accounts run by ISIS, al Qaeda and the military wing of Hamas, known as the al-Qassam Brigades.
The three groups used the accounts to openly solicit donations to their causes, but they also duped unsuspecting victims through a variety of schemes, including a website that falsely claimed to sell personal protective equipment that was in short supply in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the Justice Department.
In total, U.S. authorities seized more than 300 cryptocurrency accounts, four websites and four Facebook pages related to the criminal enterprise.
The operation shows how terrorist groups have adapted their finance activities to the digital age as cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin are harder to trace than traditional money.
“It should not surprise anyone that our enemies use modern technology, social media platforms and cryptocurrency to facilitate their evil and violent agendas,” Attorney General William Barr said in a news release.
The al-Qassam Brigades launched their cryptocurrency efforts in early 2019, boasting that Bitcoin donations were undetectable by authorities and would be used for violent attacks, prosecutors said. The group’s websites even offered video instruction on how to make donations anonymously.
But the FBI, in partnership with the Internal Revenue Service and Homeland Security Investigations, tracked and seized all 150 cryptocurrency accounts that laundered funds to and from the al-Qassam Brigades’ accounts, according to the news release. The agencies also executed search warrants targeting U.S.-based donors, authorities said.
Al Qaeda and several affiliated groups that are largely based out of Syria ran a similar scheme through Telegram and other social media platforms, prosecutors said. In some instances, they purported to act as charities when, in fact, they were explicitly soliciting funds to buy weapons and other tools for violent terrorist attacks, according to the Justice Department.
ISIS, meanwhile, took advantage of the coronavirus pandemic and set up a website to sell N95 respirator masks that were purportedly approved by the Federal Drug Administration, authorities said. Site administrators claimed to have “near unlimited supplies of the masks,” but their real goal was to scam donations from unsuspecting victims to fund their terrorist attacks, according to prosecutors.
“Terrorist networks have adapted to technology, conducting complex financial transactions in the digital world, including through cryptocurrencies,” Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in the news release. “Today’s actions demonstrate our ongoing commitment to holding malign actors accountable for their crimes.”
