The Justice Department said Thursday it has seized millions of dollars from cryptocurrency accounts that militant organizations abroad, including al-Qaida and the Islamic State …
The Justice Department said Thursday it has seized millions of dollars from cryptocurrency accounts that militant organizations abroad, including al-Qaida and the Islamic State group, relied on to raise money for violent operations. The Trump administration said the groups used the accounts to solicit donations for their causes, including through a bogus scam that officials say purported to sell protective gear for the coronavirus pandemic. Officials described it as the largest-ever seizure of digital currency funds related to terrorism. Cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin are favored for illicit transactions because they are perceived as hard to trace, and one of the groups explicitly encouraged donations by telling potential contributors that the money trail would be difficult for law enforcement to untangle, the department said. The legal move, which included undercover law enforcement work and)forfeiture complaints filed in Washington’s federal court, is meant to deprive the organizations of fund needed to buy weapons and equipment and develop fighters and plots, Assistant Attorney General John Demers, the department’s top national security official, said in a conference call announcing the case.
