FBI Seizes $560,000 in Crypto Bound for Hamas, Seizes Fundraising Domains and Servers
The Justice Department has disclosed a multi-year operation against Hamas’s cryptocurrency fundraising network, revealing that the FBI seized more than $560,000 in digital assets tied to the group’s military wing and took direct control of the websites and servers it used to solicit donations.
March, June, and October 2025: the seizure warrants
Court filings show the seizures were carried out under warrants dated March 25, June 25, and October 10, 2025, executed well before this week’s public disclosure. Investigators traced Bitcoin, Ethereum, Wrapped Ethereum, Tether, and Tron across a combined 18 Tether-controlled addresses and three Binance accounts that court documents allege were used to finance a foreign terrorist organization — specifically the Al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas’s military wing.
Building the case: human sources over pure blockchain tracing
What distinguishes this operation from earlier crypto-terrorism-financing cases is the method. Rather than relying solely on on-chain analysis, investigators used multiple human intelligence sources to identify wallets tied to the network and to trace funds through a rotating set of crypto addresses that Hamas circulated to supporters through an encrypted group chat and a dedicated fundraising website. That rotation was designed specifically to frustrate blockchain tracing tools — a defense the FBI got around by getting inside the distribution channel itself rather than chasing addresses after the fact.
September 1, 2026: the domain and server takeover
The disclosure, announced by the Justice Department on September 1, went beyond the crypto seizure itself. FBI agents took control of Alqassam.ps and related infrastructure, effectively stepping into the group’s own fundraising pipeline. That gives investigators the ability to intercept future donations sent to those addresses and gather information about who is sending them, rather than simply shutting the sites down and pushing the operation to migrate elsewhere.
Part of a longer pattern
This is not the FBI’s first strike against Hamas’s crypto financing. A separate investigation run out of the bureau’s New Mexico field office previously led to the seizure of roughly $201,400 in cryptocurrency intended for the group, and US authorities have used judicially authorized warrants over time to seize funds from hundreds of crypto accounts and multiple websites and social media pages tied to Hamas, al-Qaeda, and ISIS collectively. US Attorney Jeanine Pirro summarized the latest action bluntly: “Hamas tried to hide its money online. We found it.”
The case underscores a point regulators and blockchain-analysis firms have made repeatedly: cryptocurrency’s public ledger cuts both ways. It gives designated terrorist organizations a way to solicit funds globally with a promise of being “untraceable,” but it also leaves a permanent record that, paired with the right human intelligence, investigators can eventually walk back to source and destination.
This article covers a law enforcement action and is for informational purposes only, not legal advice. Cryptocurrency’s use in illicit finance is a real and ongoing risk factor regulators cite when shaping policy. To understand how blockchain transparency and compliance tools work, see coin680’s Bitcoin Academy.