Brian Nelson, the U.S. Treasury Department's Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, acknowledged that terrorist organizations such as Hamas and PIJ use relatively small amounts of cryptocurrencies compared to the widely reported amounts.
Brian Nelson of the U.S. Treasury Department acknowledged that Hamas uses relatively small amounts of cryptocurrencies compared to the amount widely reported.
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Posted on February 15, 2024 at 3:48 AM EST.
On the question of whether cryptocurrencies have played a major role in financing terrorist organizations such as Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), US Treasury officials have said that these organizations are still relying on “traditional products and He clarified the fact by pointing out that he likes “service”.
February 14 hearing At the House Financial Services Committee, Treasury Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Brian Nelson claimed in an October Wall Street Journal (WSJ) report that three extremist groups had raised hundreds of millions of dollars in cryptocurrencies. admitted that the amounts reported in the article were actually inaccurate. .
Today, I asked the heads of Treasury's FinCEN and OFAC about WSJ's reporting on Hamas' digital asset fundraising campaign.
Deputy Secretary Nelson confirmed on the record that the WSJ numbers are inaccurate and that cryptocurrencies are not even a popular tool for Hamas terrorists. pic.twitter.com/Y2nSJfe3Lk
— Tom Emmer (@GOPMajorityWhip) February 14, 2024
WSJ initially claimed that PIJ and the Hezbollah group raised up to $93 million in virtual currency, while Hamas received $41 million in virtual currency.
The magazine later partially revised the article to say that PIJ and Hezbollah “may have exchanged” up to $12 million in virtual currency, saying that all identified transactions directly involved PIJ. It said it wasn't clear and included additional context from Elliptic's report.
“The numbers in the Wall Street Journal article talk about wallets, but not necessarily disaggregated ones. [amount] ,” Nelson said in response to a question about the issue from Congressman Tom Emmer.
Mr. Emmer asked Mr. Nelson to clarify that the amounts reported were referring to “what people had in their wallets, not what went specifically to Palestinian Islamic Jihad or Hamas.” Ta.
“That's what we think is most likely. And, frankly, our assessment is that terrorists still prefer to use traditional products and services.” he said.
Nelson also confirmed that, based on the Treasury Department's assessment, the amount Hamas is using cryptocurrencies is relatively small compared to what has been widely reported.
When Emmer pressed Nelson on whether the Treasury Department had an obligation to correct its records because of what the senator had written; law Nelson said that based on these figures, there is no significant increase in awareness at the moment to curb “crypto-financed terrorism,” but it could still be an area of opportunity for terrorist groups in the future. He said that there is a sex.
What Nelson had prepared in advance remarksHe said the use of digital assets by terrorists is just one part of more established money transfer mechanisms, but the Treasury Department is focused on “thwarting the ability of these groups to leverage digital assets.” He pointed out that
