Share this article
Sign Up
- Back to menuPrices
- Back to menuResearch
- Back to menu
- Back to menu
- Back to menu
- Back to menu
- Back to menuWebinars
U.S. Treasury Targets Gaza Crypto Business in Sanctions to Squeeze Hamas
The Treasury Department issued a list of sanctions that included a business providing money transfers and digital assets exchange services in Gaza.
The U.S. Department of the Treasury Wednesday sanctioned several individuals and entities it says are supporting Hamas terrorist operations, including a Gaza-based exchange.
Among others, the sanctions targeted Buy Cash Money and Money Transfer Company, a company that the Treasury said had a long history of financing terrorist groups.
STORY CONTINUES BELOW
“The United States is taking swift and decisive action to target Hamas’s financiers and facilitators following its brutal and unconscionable massacre of Israeli civilians, including children,” said Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen in a statement.
Buy Cash , previously tied to wallets seized by Israel’s National Bureau for Counter Terrorist Financing in 2021, is accused of "having materially assisted, sponsored, or provided financial, material, or technological support for, or goods or services to or in support of, Hamas," according to the Treasury. The business included bitcoin among the assets in which it dealt.
The owner of the financial exchange, Ahmed M. M. Alaqad, was also sanctioned on Wednesday.
"This really shows how Treasury – how the U.S. – should go after any terrorist use of crypto," Yaya Fanusie, a former Central Intelligence Agency analyst who is head of anti-money laundering and cyber risk policy at the Crypto Council for Innovation, said in a CoinDesk TV interview on Wednesday. "It's pretty precise and targeted."
Blockchain analytics firm Elliptic said that while the U.S. sanctioned only one address associated with Buy Cash, it's aware of others used by the broker on multiple blockchains including Bitcoin.
"In total, our research has found that these addresses have received cryptocurrencies including Bitcoin and Tether worth more than $25 million since 2015," the firm said in a blog post.
Read More: Hamas-Linked Crypto Accounts Frozen by Israeli Police, With Binance's Help: Report
UPDATE (October 18, 2023, 15:33 UTC): Updates with Elliptic analysis of Buy Cash activity.
UPDATE (October 18, 2023, 15:56 UTC): Updates with comment from Yaya Fanusie of CCI.
Jesse Hamilton
Jesse Hamilton is CoinDesk's deputy managing editor on the Global Policy and Regulation team, based in Washington, D.C. Before joining CoinDesk in 2022, he worked for more than a decade covering Wall Street regulation at Bloomberg News and Businessweek, writing about the early whisperings among federal agencies trying to decide what to do about crypto. He’s won several national honors in his reporting career, including from his time as a war correspondent in Iraq and as a police reporter for newspapers. Jesse is a graduate of Western Washington University, where he studied journalism and history. He has no crypto holdings.
More For You
Crypto Industry Asks President Trump to Stop JPMorgan’s 'Punitive Tax' on Data Access
A coalition of fintech and crypto trade groups is urging the White House to defend open banking and stop JPMorgan from charging fees to access customer data.
What to know:
- Ten major fintech and crypto trade associations have urged President Trump to stop big banks from imposing fees that could hinder innovation and competition.
- JPMorgan's plan to charge for access to consumer banking data may debank millions and threaten the adoption of stablecoins and self-custody wallets.
- The CFPB's open banking rule, which mandates free consumer access to bank data, is under threat as banks have sued to block it, and the CFPB has requested its vacatur.
