The U.S. Treasury Department has announced new sanctions targeting the terrorist group Hamas. The sanctions are aimed at disrupting Hamas's global financial networks that fund its operations in the Gaza Strip. According to Axios, these new sanctions are just the first of several rounds that will be directed at the group. Brian Nelson, Treasury undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, emphasized that disrupting Hamas's financing has been a Treasury priority for decades.
Hamas, an Iran-backed terrorist group, primarily relies on the traditional financial system to solicit donations and move its money. The group also uses charities and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to raise and transfer funds. While there have been calls from politicians, such as Sen. Elizabeth Warren, to crack down on cryptocurrency as a means to disrupt terrorist financing, reports show that terrorists still heavily rely on traditional financial methods.
In April, the Hamas military wing al-Qassam Brigades announced that it would stop fundraising in bitcoin due to successful tracking of the funding to donors by governments.
The U.S. Treasury Department's 2023 "Illicit Finance Risk Assessment of Decentralized Finance" report found that the majority of money laundering and terrorist financing occurs through fiat currency or other traditional methods, rather than within the virtual asset ecosystem. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has also highlighted the difficulty of evading sanctions using cryptocurrency. She emphasized that blockchains are regularly examined, making large transactions noticeable, and crypto exchanges are subject to anti-money laundering and Combatting the Financing of Terrorism regulations.
