Israel manages to freeze cryptocurrency wallets of Hamas terrorists

Israeli police managed to confiscate cryptocurrency wallets belonging to the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas. According to law enforcement officials, Hamas was channeling funds received through social media to cryptocurrency wallets.

Lahav 433, a local organization similar to the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), conducted the seizure using Binance. After the discovery, the police transferred the funds from the Hamas wallets to the Israeli state treasury. Hamas representatives demanded donations in cryptocurrency after launching an offensive against Israel on Saturday. The group later redirected funds raised through social media to custodial wallets on the exchange.

«When the attack began, Hamas launched a fundraising campaign on social media, calling on the public to deposit cryptocurrencies into their account. Thecyber and foreign exchange unit immediately worked to find and freeze the accounts using the Binancecrypto exchange ,» said an Israeli police spokesman.

The Israeli and British police also traced a British bank account that the group used to receive additional funding. «The Israeli police, military and other partners will continue to fight terrorist financing and disrupt the strategic financial assets of terrorist organizations,» the spokesman added.

Binance spokesperson Hae Yi said that the exchange’s cooperation with Israel is apolitical and concerns only Hamas, not the entire Palestinian region. The exchange could not refuse law enforcement agencies, given that the United Nations has recognized Hamas as a terrorist group.

As a reminder, a theory has emerged online that Israeli intelligence reacted late to the Hamas attack because Palestinian militants use Huawei technology. According to users and some experts, Huawei smartphones are difficult to wiretap. After Google and other US IT giants banned Huawei from using their services in smartphones and tablets, the Chinese company developed its own analogs of foreign programs. Moreover, the new services are not protected from hacking by the Chinese special services.