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Israel has frozen multiple accounts on the cryptocurrency exchange Binance that it believes Hamas was using to raise money, the cyber arm of the Israeli police announced yesterday. It’s not yet clear if the shuttered accounts directly financed last weekend’s assault on Israeli civilians, which marked the beginning of the current war between Israel and Hamas.
Law enforcement didn’t specify how many accounts they froze or how much crypto they found but said seized funds would be diverted to Israel’s state treasury.
This isn’t a first. Israel has seized 190 other Binance wallets it linked to Hamas or the Islamic State group since 2021, Reuters reported in May.
Hamas is regarded as one of the most sophisticated users of crypto-enabled terror financing, a former US treasury official told the Wall Street Journal. The group, which is largely bankrolled by Iran, uses crypto solicited through social media to get around the international banking sanctions imposed because it’s been flagged as a terrorist group by the US and EU.
- Hamas reportedly began publicly fundraising crypto in 2019 via its Telegram channel and raised about $30,000 in bitcoin for one wallet that year.
- Between the summer of 2021 and the summer of 2023, about $41 million worth of crypto was deposited into crypto wallets linked to Hamas, according to the Tel Aviv-based analytics firm BitOK.
The Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) and Hezbollah—two other US- and EU-designated terrorist groups involved in the fighting against Israel—have also partially funded their operations with digital currency:
- The PIJ raised $93 million in crypto between August 2021 and June 2023. The group also sent more than $12 million in digital currency to Hezbollah, according to Elliptic, a crypto analytics provider.
- Israel seized $1.7 million in crypto in June from wallets linked to Hezbollah and the Iranian military.
Zoom out: Crypto’s anonymity and near untraceability have made it a popular choice for terror financing. Crypto-assisted attacks may have quadrupled in recent years, according to UN estimates. But recent developments in blockchain-tracking tech and platform-mandated ID checks have made it a bit easier for authorities to identify and seize illicit funds.—ML
