Tawfiq Muhammad Said Al-Law, a hawala operator involved in Hezbollah crypto funding, has been sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), the federal agency announced Tuesday. Hezbollah Crypto Operator Sanctioned By OFAC According to Tuesday press release from OFAC, Al-Law is accused of “having materially assisted, sponsored, or provided financial, material,…
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U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Under Secretary Brian E. Nelson has confirmed that terrorists’ use of crypto remains a small fraction of more established mechanisms to move money. He also admitted that “digital assets were not even a popular tool for Hamas or the Palestinian Islamic Jihad” and “Hamas is using crypto in relatively small…
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The US Treasury’s Undersecretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, Brian Nelson, confirmed in a testimony before the House Financial Services Committee that the media and Washington lawmakers exaggerated earlier reports of Hamas using crypto to fund terrorist activities. Wednesday’s hearing alluded to a report by Wall Street Journal that Hamas used crypto to raise “millions.” Crypto-skeptic lawmakers…
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USDC stablecoin issuer Circle neither “finances Hamas” nor does it bank Tron blockchain founder Justin Sun, the fintech firm’s chief strategy officer has asserted. Although Circle had past business dealings with Sun, this ended in February 2023 when it terminated his accounts and those of affiliated companies. Circle Subject to ‘Multiple Regulatory Regimes’ Circle, the…
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Image source: Pixabay There has been an increase in donations to charities linked to Hamas following the resistance group’s attack on Israel on October 7. According to Israeli officials, the surge in donations is estimated to be around 70%, CNBC reported on Tuesday. The report noted that the exact amount of money cannot be independently confirmed. …
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Fifty-eight U.S. lawmakers have probed President Joe Biden and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen regarding Hamas’ digital asset operations, as well as whether the U.S. has had success in seizing illicit cryptocurrencies. Despite reports that terrorist groups have raised millions in crypto, the lawmakers stressed: “It remains unclear how much, if any, of the publicly identified…
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The Wall Street Journal corrected its misreporting about crypto funding Hamas, but it was too late to stop lawmakers from amplifying false claims. Following October’s tragic events in Israel, a narrative linking Hamas funding to cryptocurrencies emerged from The Wall Street Journal in an Oct. 10 story authored by the paper’s Angus Berwick and Ian…
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Blockchain analytics firm Elliptic says there is no evidence that Hamas has received significant volumes of cryptocurrency donations, emphasizing that crypto data it provides on the matter has been misrepresented. Noting that crypto accounts linked to Hamas have been seized or frozen, Elliptic says: “This illustrates the weakness of crypto as a terrorism fundraising tool.…
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Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren is taking advantage sensationalist claims related to Hamas’ use of crypto. Unfortunately, those claims are largely false. Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren is at it again. With mainstream press outlets including Germany’s Deutsche Welle running sensationalist headlines — “How cryptocurrency fueled Hamas’ terrorist attack” — Warren is using Hamas’ attack on Israel…
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Inaccurate methodologies have resulted in overstated metrics about the use of cryptocurrency by terror groups fighting Israel, according to Chainalysis. The analytics company has tried to “correct the record” on crypto’s role in terrorism financing amid ongoing hostilities in the Middle East. Terrorism Financing Is a Small Portion of Already Small Illicit Crypto Volume, Says…
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