Recently, a report released shows that Israel seized accounts of Binance used by Hamas and Islamic State (IS). According to reports, Binance platform accounts have helped these terrorist organizations to increase illegal activities around the world.
Nowadays, terrorist organizations are adopting modern technologies to fund their activities globally from trading weapons to human trafficking. According to reports, Hamas and Islamic State used the crypto exchange Binance to fund their terrorist activities. Illegal use of cryptocurrencies is currently the most emerging threat in front of regulatory bodies globally as this requires very sophisticated technology to crack down. For those who are not aware, Israel is currently facing intense missile attacks from several terrorist organizations. However, the report doesn’t specify how many cryptocurrencies were seized or whether there are other cryptocurrency exchanges involved in these activities.
According to reports, since 2021 Israel’s National Bureau for Counter-Terror Financing (NBCTF) seized accounts. In December last year, the Israeli government acquired approval from the court for seizing cryptocurrencies wallet that have funded terrorist organizations. Only digital assets specifically used to fund terrorist action had previously been subject to seizure by Israeli authorities. According to the Defence Minister of Israel, in 2021 authorities seized some $750,000 in cryptocurrency from terror-linked crypto wallets.
The threats have significantly increased after the increased use of cryptocurrencies wallet in terror funding. Israel has been very active in countering the threats from cryptocurrency misuse by terrorist organizations. In 2021, signed an agreement and confiscated worth 2.6 million shekels in cryptocurrencies from the al-Mathaddon exchange company which was linked to Hamas in Gaza.
Efforts of Israeli agencies seem to be successful after a report published last week said that, Izz ad-Din al-Qasaam brigades have stopped business dealings in cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin. This method has been used by these groups for the last few years. Also, not just terrorist organizations few state-owned hacking groups like Lazarus are a big threat to the nations. It will be interesting to see how nations will tackle the emergence of cyber terrorism by using cryptocurrencies with keeping innovative technologies at the same time.
