National Headquarters for Economic Combating Terrorism (EMT) of the Ministry of Defense, the Shin Bet, and Israel police have frozen accounts affiliated with Hamas in partnership with Binance, according to a report by Calcalist.
The report states:
“With the outbreak of the war, Hamas launched a fund-raising campaign on social networks and asked the public to deposit the cryptocurrencies into (an) account. The cyber unit and MTL acted immediately to locate the accounts and freeze them, with the assistance of the crypto exchange Binance, in order to transfer the funds to the state treasury.” [translated]
The same report said the police’s cyber unit worked with the British police and froze an account at Barclays, which was created to accept donations for Hamas.
One of the biggest criticisms of crypto is the ability to transfer funds quickly. In the early days of crypto, this may have been rampant but regulatory authorities have now advanced sufficiently to track and stop illicit activity, such as terrorist financing, by using sophisticated tools. Most cryptocurrencies may be tracked via public ledgers that anyone may view.
