R to @RookmakerDorien: Israeli military intelligence officers began tracing tens of millions of dollars in payments from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to Al Mutahadun, and other exchanges owned by Shamlakh, that were earmarked for the Al-Qassam Brigades to buy arms and pay fighters, according to the defense ministry.
The NBCTF took action against Shamlakh’s shift to crypto in 2021.
The bureau issued its first order to seize Al Mutahadun’s crypto funds, targeting 47 accounts at Binance, the world’s largest exchange. It said the funds either belonged to the Gazan firm or were “used for the perpetration of a severe terror crime.” 
A Binance spokesperson said it follows internationally recognized sanctions rules, blocking a small number of accounts linked to illicit funds.
That and later orders sought to seize the Hamas-controlled exchange houses’ own crypto trading accounts, as well as their customers’ accounts and digital wallets, people familiar with the actions said. It is possible that not all of the clients were involved with Hamas.
The wallets identified in the seizure orders likely only represented a fraction of the wallets used by Hamas, according to a former Israeli official, who worked on the NBCTF’s investigations until this year.
“It’s a drop in the ocean,” the ex-official said.
The use of crypto by the Gaza money exchanges was more sophisticated than Hamas’s earlier fundraising efforts in bitcoin. Digital wallets connected to the companies moved funds overwhelmingly in the form of the stablecoin tether on a blockchain system called Tron, which has heightened user privacy.
To obscure the money trail, the exchanges often changed the wallet addresses they used each day, and sent funds through mixers, Israeli officials said. They also received funds from Garantex, a large Russian crypto exchange under U.S. sanctions, and several Iranian exchanges, according…

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[2023-11-12 23:25 UTC]