Senators push bill to strengthen reporting on transactions
Some experts say, “There is little the U.S. authorities can do.”
There have been cases of confiscation of funds from Hamas virtual wallets in the past.
The U.S. Congress is pushing for a new law to strengthen transaction-related reporting to prevent the Palestinian armed political faction Hamas from using cryptocurrency, but some experts reportedly believe that blocking Hamas’ cryptocurrency funding is actually difficult.
According to Market Watch on the 17th (local time), U.S. Democratic and Republican senators proposed a bill to strengthen transaction-related reporting requirements for U.S. cryptocurrency users after news broke that Hamas was using cryptocurrency to finance attacks on Israel. is being promoted.
Previously, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported that armed political factions such as Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), and Hezbollah have accumulated a large amount of funds through cryptocurrency accounts in the past year, based on the Israeli government’s seizures and a report by a cryptocurrency analysis company. It was reported on the 10th.
According to this report, the cryptocurrency that Hamas has procured from 2021 to this year amounts to tens of millions of dollars.
However, some experts say Hamas’s financial resources are diverse and that there is little Western countries can do to block this flow of funds, MarketWatch reported.
Lorenzo Vidino, director of extremism research at George Washington University, said, “(Hamas) is a huge fundraising machine,” and also mentioned that it runs a business.
He also added that Hamas leaders are technically skilled in cryptocurrency and the anonymity of cryptocurrency makes it ideal for Hamas supporters to provide funds.
However, on the other hand, there are claims that it is possible to look into these cryptocurrency fund flows in sufficient detail.
Blockchain analysis company TRM Labs announced last week that Hamas was one of the first terrorist organizations to use cryptocurrency, and that donations to Hamas’ cryptocurrency wallet addresses had increased significantly following past Hamas-related violence. At the same time, the report also mentioned a case in August 2020 in which the U.S. Department of Justice confiscated millions of dollars in cryptocurrency from more than 300 virtual wallets linked to the Hamas military organization Al-Qassam Brigades.
Yahya Panoussi, a former terrorism analyst at the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and director of anti-money laundering and cyber risk at Crypto Council for Innovation (CCI), a cryptocurrency industry group, said, “The U.S. authorities are observing this trend in public blockchains and interfering with it.” “Because it can be done, it is fraught with risk for donors and beneficiaries,” he said.
Meanwhile, the cryptocurrency industry is said to be making efforts to prevent cryptocurrency financing related to the Israeli-Palestinian war and terrorist activities.
John Kotanek, vice president of U.S. cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase, said in a recent interview that Coinbase is in regular contact with U.S. and foreign law enforcement agencies and cooperates to detect evidence of terrorist financing or other illegal activities. In particular, he also mentioned that after the outbreak of the Israel-Palestine war, he was in direct contact with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and others to help authorities directly connect IPs to illegal activities on the blockchain.
Cryptocurrency issuer Tether also announced that it had frozen 32 cryptocurrency virtual wallets related to war and terrorism in Israel and Ukraine. It is reported that the total value of virtual wallets frozen by Tether is $873,118 (about 1.2 billion won).
Source: Donga
Mark Jones is a world traveler and journalist for News Rebeat. With a curious mind and a love of adventure, Mark brings a unique perspective to the latest global events and provides in-depth and thought-provoking coverage of the world at large.