The US Department of Justice has seized over $560,000 in cryptocurrencies linked to the Palestinian terrorist designated Hamas and its military wing known as the al-Qassam Brigades.
Court orders illicit crypto funds seizure
According to a September 1 announcement, the court authorized the FBI to confiscate the funds. It also legalized the disruption of all communication channels that the group used to solicit financing from its sympathizers.
Per the FBI affidavits, the operations leading up to this event began in March 2025 and continued through August 2026. The agency first seized about $200,000 in stablecoins in March, igniting the rest of the investigation.
As shown in the map below, donors directed funds to a specific donor wallet, after which Hamas directed these funds to an operational wallet. This last wallet was connected to many other crypto addresses belonging to mainstream exchanges, OTC desks, money mules, and other stopover wallets. All this pointed to a vast and highly coordinated money-laundering operation.
Additionally, the group attempted to apply several obfuscation techniques following the early 2025 stablecoin seizure. These include bridging funds from one network to another and utilizing single-use donation wallets.
The final forfeiture
Eventually, the agency made the connection as several crypto addresses were reused in the fundraiser. There was also a designated gas wallet, which the organization used to pay gas fees for all its other transactions.
Further research led to the takedown of domains and servers associated with the group’s support and donation website. At this point, the FBI managed to intercept funds en route to the donation address, in addition to donors’ information.
The FBI now says it intends to use insight obtained from this operation to navigate similar investigations into terrorist and other illicit financing tactics on blockchain networks.
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