Education
The US says it has intercepted millions in bitcoin to finance militant organisations.
The US Department of Justice says it has disrupted three online recruitment efforts targeting extremist groups, including Al-Qaeda, ISIS and the al-Qassam Brigades (Hamas' military wing). By doing so, the DOJ confiscated millions of dollars by bitcoin to finance the parties. This is the largest-ever government seizure of bitcoin in the sense of terrorism, according to the Ministry.
U.S. authorities have since frozen over 300 bitcoin accounts, four blogs, and four Twitter pages linked to promotions. The Verge has made a statement on Facebook.
Terror networks have adapted to technology, performing sophisticated financial transactions in the modern world, even by cryptocurrencies, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in a statement.
The organisations seem to have carried out these activities primarily on the Internet, using a range of channels and strategies. Al-Qassam Brigades' movement featured calls for bitcoin donations on its social media account and its own websites. The organization has also shared tutorial videos to help users donate anonymously with a personalized bitcoin address.
The U.S. District Attorney's Office in Columbia has convicted two people, Mehmet Akti and Hüsamettin Karataş, of serving as related money launderers.
Through DOJ filing, Al Qaeda and other affiliated extremist groups requested donations from Bitcoin through Telegram and other social media channels, purporting in some cases to be charitable.
The department believes that the ISIS facilitator named Murat Cakar also laundered money for the group through a website called FaceMaskCenter.com that purported to sell personal protection gear, like N95 masks.
The Cyber Crime Unit of the Internal Revenue Service was able to "track funds used by extremist groups at their origins and disrupt these extreme contact and financial networks," said Don Fort, director of the IRS criminal investigation. The investigation was a joint initiative involving a variety of U.S. departments, including the IRS, the Department of Homeland Security, the FBI and the DC U.S. Attorney's Office.
