ISRAEL AT WAR
America cracks down on crypto terror
As Israel’s war with Hamas continues, the American government took a series of measures against the crypto market and those who use it to finance terrorism. Among other things, sanctions were established against Hamas operatives and a cryptocurrency exchange in Gaza, who also transferred funds to ISIS
Against the backdrop of Operation Iron Swords, the American government continues its fight against the use of cryptocurrencies by terrorist organizations to finance their activities. In recent weeks, a series of decisions, commissions, investigations, and initiatives have come out that put pressure on the crypto market. The market was already under regulatory pressure in the United States after the collapse of several giant crypto companies, and now regulators are enjoying unprecedented support from lawmakers. The conviction of Sam Bankman-Fried, the bankrupt founder of the crypto empire FTX, on seven counts of fraud and money laundering, provides a windfall for lawmakers.
On October 11, the Banking Committee in the U.S. Senate announced the opening of an investigation into the funding sources of Hamas, with an emphasis on the role of crypto. On October 17, no less than 105 members of Congress and American senators sent a letter to the U.S. Treasury to demand a systematic plan to prevent the use of crypto by terrorist organizations. "We urge you to act quickly to reduce illegal crypto activity and protect our national security and that of our allies," according to the letter signed by, among others, Senators Elizabeth Warren, John Fetterman, and Mark Kelly and members of Congress Adam Schiff, Katie Porter, and Barbara Lee.
On October 18, the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) imposed sanctions on ten members of the Hamas terrorist group, operatives, and financial facilitators in Gaza and elsewhere. One of them is an operator of a kind of cryptocurrency exchange in Gaza, called Buy Cash. According to the OFAC, this business brokered money transfers to ISIS in Gaza.
On October 19, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Authority (FinCEN) announced a series of proposed new rules aimed at identifying and defining "mixer" tools as recognized means of money laundering. "Mixers" (or CVC) are a service into which coins are flowed to be mixed with each other, then flowed to the original recipients with the aim of obfuscating the source and destination of the assets. According to FinCEN, this is the first time that the U.S. government has invoked Section 311 of the Patriot Act (to intercept and disrupt terrorist activities enacted after the September 11 attacks), focusing on money laundering transactions. "The action emphasizes the commitment of the Treasury Department," said Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo, "to aggressively combat the illegal use of CVC by terrorist groups, including Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad."
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Not long after, Senator Cynthia Lummis and Chairman of the Subcommittee on Digital Assets French Hill asked the Justice Department to take action against two prominent crypto companies: the world's largest crypto exchange Binance and the world's largest stablecoin issuer Tether. "We support swift action by the Department of Justice. against Binance and Tether in order to strangle the source of funding for the terrorists who are currently attacking Israel," they wrote. Bitcoin, by the way, is currently trading at a value of $35,000, a record of a year and a half.
