The United States Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has sanctioned a Gaza-based cryptocurrency exchange company suspected of having ties to the Palestinian militant group Hamas.
On Wednesday, October 18, 2023 OFAC announced they were imposing sanctions on 10 key entities believed to be associated with Hamas, including its members, operatives and financial facilitators.
The Treasury Department reported in 2021, Israel’s National Terror Financing Bureau seized crypto wallets linked to Hamas fundraising campaigns. According to New York-based blockchain intelligence firm Chainalysis, one of these addresses belonged to Buy Cash.
“Buy Cash, while involved in Hamas crypto activities, also facilitated transfers for other terrorist groups most notably, Bitcoin transfers in 2019 from al-Qaeda affiliates and procurement of online infrastructure in 2017 on behalf of ISIS,” Chainalysis said in a statement, quoted from Yahoo Finance, Friday (20/10/2023).
In addition to the Gaza-based crypto business, OFAC said it imposed sanctions on individuals involved in Hamas’ secret investment portfolio and an agent with deep ties to the Iranian regime.
Israel declared war on Hamas on October 7 after the militant group carried out attacks in Israel, triggering retaliatory airstrikes in Gaza.
As previously reported, a bipartisan group of US lawmakers urged the Biden administration to immediately crack down on the use of cryptocurrency by Hamas and its affiliates following the Palestinian and Israeli conflict earlier this month.
A letter sent on Tuesday, October 17, 2023 to the US Treasury Department and White House from 105 lawmakers led by Senators Elizabeth Warren, Roger Marshall and Representative Sean Casten, expressed grave concern that Hamas and its affiliate group called Palestinian Islamic Jihad are using digital assets to fund their operations and evade US sanctions.
“Congress and this administration must take decisive action to thoroughly address the risks of illicit crypto finance before it can be used to finance another tragedy,” said the letter, quoted from Yahoo Finance, Thursday (19/10/2023).
The Biden administration on Wednesday issued sanctions aimed at stifling Hamas funding, citing what it said was Hamas’ secret investment portfolio, an Iran-linked financial facilitator and a Gaza-based cryptocurrency exchange.
Israeli police on October 10 said they had frozen several crypto accounts used to solicit donations for Hamas. Reuters reported in May Israel had seized around 190 crypto accounts on crypto exchange Binance since 2021, including dozens of accounts it said were owned by Palestinian companies linked to Hamas.
Binance said the exchange had cooperated with international counter-terrorism authorities in the seizure.
Since its inception, the cryptocurrency community has touted digital assets as a means for anonymous transactions, and a series of federal law enforcement actions over fraud, money laundering and unregistered coin offerings have put the industry in the spotlight.
