Beautiful Virgin Islands

Thursday, Oct 30, 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
UK and Vietnam Sign Landmark Migration Deal to Fast-Track Returns of Irregular Arrivals
UK Drug-Pricing Overhaul Essential for Life-Sciences Ambition, Says GSK Chief
Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie Temporarily Leave the UK Amid Their Parents’ Royal Fallout
UK Weighs Early End to Oil and Gas Windfall Tax as Reeves Seeks Investment Commitments
UK Retail Inflation Slows as Shop Prices Fall for First Time Since Spring
Next Raises Full-Year Profit Guidance After Strong Third-Quarter Performance
Reform UK’s Lee Anderson Admits to 'Gaming' Benefits System While Advocating Crackdown
United States and South Korea Conclude Major Trade Accord Worth $350 Billion
Hurricane Melissa Strikes Cuba After Devastating Jamaica With Record Winds
Vice President Vance to Headline Turning Point USA Campus Event at Ole Miss
U.S. Targets Maritime Narco-Routes While Border Pressure to Mexico Remains Limited
Bill Gates at 70: “I Have a Real Fear of Artificial Intelligence – and Also Regret”
Elon Musk Unveils Grokipedia: An AI-Driven Alternative to Wikipedia
Saudi Arabia Unveils Vision for First-Ever "Sky Stadium" Suspended Over Desert Floor
Amazon Announces 14 000 Corporate Job Cuts as AI Investment Accelerates
UK Shop Prices Fall for First Time Since March, Food Leads the Decline
London Stock Exchange Group ADR (LNSTY) Earns Zacks Rank #1 Upgrade on Rising Earnings Outlook
Soap legend Tony Adams, long-time star of Crossroads, dies at 84
Rachel Reeves Signals Tax Increases Ahead of November Budget Amid £20-50 Billion Fiscal Gap
NatWest Past Gains of 314% Spotlight Opportunity — But Some Key Risks Remain
UK Launches ‘Golden Age’ of Nuclear with £38 Billion Sizewell C Approval
UK Announces £1.08 Billion Budget for Offshore Wind Auction to Boost 2030 Capacity
UK Seeks Steel Alliance with EU and US to Counter China’s Over-Capacity
UK Struggles to Balance China as Both Strategic Threat and Valued Trading Partner
Argentina’s Markets Surge as Milei’s Party Secures Major Win
British Journalist Sami Hamdi Detained by U.S. Authorities After Visa Revocation Amid Israel-Gaza Commentary
King Charles Unveils UK’s First LGBT+ Armed Forces Memorial at National Memorial Arboretum
At ninety-two and re-elected: Paul Biya secures eighth term in Cameroon amid unrest
Racist Incidents Against UK Nurses Surge by 55%
UK Chancellor Rachel Reeves Cites Shared Concerns With Trump Administration as Foundation for Early US-UK Trade Deal
Essentra plc: A Closer Look at a UK ‘Penny Stock’ Opportunity Amid Market Weakness
U.S. and China Near Deal to Avert Rare-Earth Export Controls Ahead of Trump-Xi Summit
Justin time: Justin Herbert Shields Madison Beer with Impressive Reflex at Lakers Game
Russia’s President Putin Declares Burevestnik Nuclear Cruise Missile Ready for Deployment
Giuffre’s Memoir Alleges Maxwell Claimed Sexual Act with Clooney
House Republicans Move to Strip NYC Mayoral Front-Runner Zohran Mamdani of U.S. Citizenship
Record-High Spoiled Ballots Signal Voter Discontent in Ireland’s 2025 Presidential Election
Philippines’ Taal Volcano Erupts Overnight with 2.4 km Ash Plume
Albania’s Virtual AI 'Minister' Diella Set to 'Birth' Eighty-Three Digital Assistants for MPs
Tesla Unveils Vision for Optimus V3 as ‘Biggest Product of All Time’, Including Surgical Capabilities
Francis Ford Coppola Auctions Luxury Watches After Self-Financed Film Flop
Convicted Sex Offender Mistakenly Freed by UK Prison Service Arrested in London
United States and China Begin Constructive Trade Negotiations Ahead of Trump–Xi Summit
U.S. Treasury Sanctions Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro over Drug-Trafficking Allegations
Miss USA Crowns Nebraska’s Audrey Eckert Amid Leadership Overhaul
‘I Am Not Done’: Kamala Harris Signals Possible 2028 White House Run
NBA Faces Integrity Crisis After Mass Arrests in Gambling Scandal
Swift Heist at the Louvre Sees Eight French Crown Jewels Stolen in Under Seven Minutes
U.S. Halts Trade Talks with Canada After Ontario Ad Using Reagan Voice Triggers Diplomatic Fallout
Microsoft AI CEO: ‘We’re making an AI that you can trust your kids to use’ — but can Microsoft rebuild its own trust before fixing the industry’s?
×