Beautiful Virgin Islands

Thursday, Sep 18, 2025

Secret Documents Show How Terrorist Supporters Use Bitcoin

Secret Documents Show How Terrorist Supporters Use Bitcoin

The propagandist who called himself Azym Abdullah didn’t need much money to set up a website for ISIS that would broadcast gruesome beheading videos.
What he needed was secrecy, so in 2014 he reportedly turned to cryptocurrency.

He paid a little more than 1 bitcoin, approximately $400 at the time, to register the domain name in Iceland and host it on servers around the globe. His site asked visitors for donations to help pay for the upkeep. Those, too, were in bitcoin.

Sending donations that way allowed his donors to shield their identities behind a string of letters and numbers — a favored technique that is making it harder for banks, law enforcement authorities, and the US Treasury Department to track and slow the flow of money supporting terrorism.

Abdullah’s reliance on bitcoin is documented in a 2017 Treasury Department intelligence assessment, which was received by BuzzFeed News as part of a cache of documents that includes internal emails and reports about cryptocurrency. The intelligence assessment also reveals evidence of nine other incidents where terrorist supporters used cryptocurrency to fund their activities, from purchasing airline tickets to defacing a political website to arranging travel to Syria.

The vast majority of crypto transactions are used for legitimate purchases. But the documents provide insight into the US government’s ongoing, sometimes lagging, battle to counteract the use of crypto technology to foster terrorism and crime, as well as the variety of ways that crypto — with its presumed anonymity and ease of transfer around the globe — can be used for nefarious purposes.

In 2016, for instance, analysts at the US Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, or FinCEN, raised alarms about so-called mixers — companies that break up crypto transactions into smaller pieces to further shield the identity of the owner. When those companies operate in the US, they are supposed to register with FinCEN and provide information about suspicious clients and transactions. But the report, which is among the documents received by BuzzFeed News, found that “of the 30 largest mixing services, none have registered … or shown any evidence of a compliance program.”

It wasn’t until nearly four years later that the government took action. Last year, FinCEN fined one of the mixers $60 million for failing “to collect and verify customer names, addresses, and other identifiers on over 1.2 million transactions.” Those transactions, the government found, aided criminals involved with illegal narcotics, fraud, counterfeiting, and child exploitation as well as neo-Nazi and other white supremacist groups. FinCEN said it tracked transactions worth more than $2,000 from the mixer to a website called Welcome to Video that hosted child sexual abuse materials.

The documents examined by BuzzFeed News trace the Treasury Department’s concerns about crypto technology back at least 10 years. FinCEN is now trying to change its rules so that any company dealing with cryptocurrency will have to get clearer information about their customers and their transactions.

FinCEN and the Department of Justice did not respond to messages seeking comment.

Yaya Fanusie, a former CIA analyst and an expert on the national security implications associated with cryptocurrencies, said he believes that US officials are ahead of their European counterparts in addressing the issue. But, like other experts contacted by BuzzFeed News, he said he sees a need for a new class of financial investigators to stop cryptocurrency from being misused by terrorists, narcotraffickers, and other criminals.

“For people on the ground, crypto is harder to understand when compared with more traditional means of money laundering,” said Fanusie, now a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security. “Only recently are the skills and resources getting deployed at the field level.”

As regulators and the industry slowly adjust, the allure of crypto remains strong, with terrorists finding they can use it to solicit donations to fund operations. Last August the Department of Justice announced that an investigation conducted in cooperation with the Treasury Department had seized millions of dollars as part of the “largest ever seizure of terrorist organizations’ cryptocurrency accounts.”

One of the indictments described how al-Qaeda and affiliated groups ran a money laundering operation that solicited donations in crypto over social media accounts. They then used that network for donations “to further their terrorist goals.” One of the al-Qaeda associated networks tracked by the government received more than 15 bitcoins, worth thousands of dollars, in 187 transactions between Feb. 5, 2019, and Feb. 25, 2020.
Newsletter

Related Articles

Beautiful Virgin Islands
0:00
0:00
Close
US Tech Giants Pledge Billions to UK AI Infrastructure Following Starmer's Call
Saudi Arabia cracks down on music ‘lounges’ after conservative backlash
DeepMind and OpenAI Achieve Gold at ‘Coding Olympics’ in AI Milestone
SEC Allows Public Companies to Block Investors from Class-Action Lawsuits
Saudi Arabia Signs ‘Strategic Mutual Defence’ Pact with Pakistan, Marking First Arab State to Gain Indirect Access to Nuclear Strike Capabilities in the Region
Federal Reserve Cuts Rates by Quarter Point and Signals More to Come
Effective and Impressive Generation Z Protest: Images from the Riots in Nepal
European manufacturers against ban on polluting cars: "The industry may collapse"
Sam Altman sells the 'Wedding Estate' in Hawaii for 49 million dollars
Trump: Cancel quarterly company reports and settle for reporting once every six months
Turkish car manufacturer Togg Enters German Market with 5-Star Electric Sedan and SUV to Challenge European EV Brands
US Launches New Pilot Program to Accelerate eVTOL Air Taxi Deployment
Christian Brueckner Released from German Prison after Serving Unrelated Sentence
World’s Longest Direct Flight China Eastern to Launch 29-Hour Shanghai–Buenos Aires Direct Flight via Auckland in December
New OpenAI Study Finds Majority of ChatGPT Use Is Personal, Not Professional
Hong Kong Industry Group Calls for HK$20 Billion Support Fund to Ease Property Market Stress
Joe Biden’s Post-Presidency Speaking Fees Face Weak Demand amid Corporate Reluctance
Charlie Kirk's murder will break the left's hateful cancel tactics
Kash Patel erupts at ‘buffoon’ Sen. Adam Schiff over Russiagate: ‘You are the biggest fraud’
Homeland Security says Emmy speech ‘fanning the flames of hatred’ after Einbinder’s ‘F— ICE’ remark
Charlie Kirk’s Alleged Assassin Tyler Robinson Faces Death Penalty as Charges Formally Announced
Actor, director, environmentalist Robert Redford dies at 89
The conservative right spreads westward: a huge achievement for 'Alternative for Germany' in local elections
JD Vance Says There Is “No Unity” with Those Who Celebrate Charlie Kirk’s Killing, and he is right!
Trump sues the 'New York Times' for an astronomical sum of 15 billion dollars
Florida Hospital Welcomes Its Largest-Ever Baby: Annan, Nearly Fourteen Pounds at Birth
U.S. and Britain Poised to Finalize Over $10 Billion in High-Tech, Nuclear and Defense Deals During Trump State Visit
China Finds Nvidia Violated Antitrust Laws in Mellanox Deal, Deepens Trade Tensions with US
US Air Force Begins Modifications on Qatar-Donated Jet Amid Plans to Use It as Air Force One
Pope Leo Warns of Societal Crisis Over Mega-CEO Pay, Citing Tesla’s Proposed Trillion-Dollar Package
Poland Green-Lights NATO Deployment in Response to Major Russian Drone Incursion
Elon Musk Retakes Lead as World’s Richest After Brief Ellison Surge
U.S. and China Agree on Framework to Shift TikTok to American Ownership
London Daily Podcast: London Massive Pro Democracy Rally, Musk Support, UK Economic Data and Premier League Results Mark Eventful Weekend
This Week in AI: Meta’s Superintelligence Push, xAI’s Ten Billion-Dollar Raise, Genesis AI’s Robotics Ambitions, Microsoft Restructuring, Amazon’s Million-Robot Milestone, and Google’s AlphaGenome Update
Le Pen Tightens the Pressure on Macron as France Edges Toward Political Breakdown
Musk calls for new UK government at huge pro-democracy rally in London, but Britons have been brainwashed to obey instead of fighting for their human rights
Elon Musk responds to post calling for the murder of Erika Kirk, widow of Charlie Kirk: 'Either we fight back or they will kill us'
Czech Republic signs €1.34 billion contract for Leopard 2A8 main battle tanks with delivery from 2028
USA: Office Depot Employees Refused to Print Poster in Memory of Charlie Kirk – and Were Fired
Proposed U.S. Bill Would Allow Civil Suits Against Judges Who Release Repeat Violent Offenders
Penske Media Sues Google Over “AI Overviews,” Claiming It Uses Journalism Without Consent and Destroys Traffic
Indian Student Engineers Propose “Project REBIRTH” to Protect Aircraft from Crashes Using AI, Airbags and Smart Materials
French Debt Downgrade Piles Pressure on Macron’s New Prime Minister
US and UK Near Tech, Nuclear and Whisky Deals Ahead of Trump Trip
One in Three Europeans Now Uses TikTok, According to the Chinese Tech Giant
Could AI Nursing Robots Help Healthcare Staffing Shortages?
NATO Deploys ‘Eastern Sentry’ After Russian Drones Violate Polish Airspace
Anesthesiologist Left Operation Mid-Surgery to Have Sex with Nurse
Tens of Thousands of Young Chinese Get Up Every Morning and Go to Work Where They Do Nothing
×