US Justice Department Seizes $560,000 in Crypto Tied to Hamas and the Al-Qassam Brigades

The US Department of Justice says it has confiscated more than $560,000 in digital assets linked to Hamas and its military wing, the Al-Qassam Brigades, underscoring that the group's crypto fundraising persisted longer than its public statements suggested. In a coordinated action announced on September 1, 2026, the DOJ and the FBI said they seized cryptocurrency and dismantled online infrastructure used to solicit donations, including fundraising domains and servers. Investigators described an earlier key step in March 2025, when authorities seized about $201,400 connected to a network of rotating wallet addresses. Those wallets had moved more than $1.5 million since late 2024, using rapid address changes to complicate tracing before funds were cashed out. Across multiple matters, the primary asset cited was USDT, the US dollar-pegged stablecoin issued by Tether. The FBI's Albuquerque Field Office led blockchain analysis that traced USDT flows back to Hamas-linked accounts despite the rotation tactic. In July 2025, the DOJ filed a civil forfeiture complaint seeking roughly $2 million in digital currency tied to a Gaza-based firm, Buy Cash Money and Money Transfer Company, and its owner, Ahmed M.M. Alaqad. Both had previously been sanctioned by the US Treasury. According to the DOJ, an account associated with Buy Cash received at least $4 million intended for Hamas operations, making the $2 million target a partial recovery from a larger stream of funds. US officials contrasted the enforcement record with Hamas's 2023 claim that it was ending crypto fundraising, a statement made as exchanges and blockchain analytics firms increased efforts to flag Hamas-linked addresses. The DOJ said the group continued to seek donations via encrypted platforms after that announcement and noted it has pursued Hamas digital fundraising networks since at least 2020. The case also highlights the growing role of blockchain forensics. Analytics providers such as Chainalysis and TRM Labs have developed methods to cluster addresses by behavior, identify exchange deposit accounts, and map transaction paths across large numbers of hops. Authorities said those capabilities helped connect short-lived, rotating wallets to a single Hamas-affiliated operation. For the crypto industry, the DOJ's actions point to heightened compliance expectations. Exchanges and wallet providers handling USDT at scale are likely to face closer scrutiny of transactions showing rotation patterns or originating from jurisdictions subject to Treasury sanctions. The Buy Cash matter is a notable example: a sanctioned money-transfer business allegedly routed at least $4 million in Hamas-directed funds through traceable blockchain addresses, and that record remained sufficient to support a federal forfeiture filing. Stablecoin issuers may also see renewed attention on address-freezing capabilities. Tether has frozen addresses linked to illicit activity in past cases following law-enforcement requests.