US authorities dismantle six-year Hamas funding network moving $2 million through charities and crypto

US authorities have unwound a six-year fundraising operation accused of moving more than $2 million to Hamas through French charities and cryptocurrency transfers. The case shows how terrorist financing networks have adapted old-fashioned charity fraud to newer, harder-to-trace crypto rails even as blockchain analytics firms get better at tracing the money.

• OFAC sanctioned three individuals and two charities for allegedly funneling more than $2 million to Hamas since 2020
• Prosecutors say al-Zaq and his associates raised about $1.75 million through December 2025, including at least $626,000 from US donors
• The Justice Department unsealed charges against Saleem al-Zaq and announced six arrests tied to the network

• $2M+ total raised for Hamas over six years, 2020 to 2026
• $1.75M amount prosecutors say al-Zaq and associates raised through December 2025
• $626K amount prosecutors say came from US-based donors alone
• 6 arrests announced by the Justice Department alongside the unsealed charges

The Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control on Friday (October 2) designated Saleem Abdallah Saleem al-Zaq, a Gaza-based battalion deputy in Hamas’s Al-Qassam Brigades, along with France-based fundraisers Faouzi Barika and Amel Oualid. Treasury also named two charities the pair controlled, Association Baraka and Ensemble C Mieux, in a press release describing what it called a sophisticated, multi-year financing architecture. According to reporting by BeInCrypto, the case combines traditional charity fraud with crypto transfers designed to obscure the money’s origin.

Treasury described al-Zaq as a Gaza-based battalion deputy in Hamas’s armed wing.

Treasury says more than $2 million flowed through the financing network from 2020 through 2026

Treasury’s account puts the scheme’s timeline at six years, running from 2020 through 2026, during which Barika, Oualid and al-Zaq collected more than $2 million. Prosecutors allege al-Zaq and his associates raised about $1.75 million through December 2025, including at least $626,000 from US donors.

Barika ran Association Baraka, which he jointly established with al-Zaq, while Oualid operated Ensemble C Mieux. Both charities presented themselves publicly as raising humanitarian aid for Gazan civilians. Treasury said al-Zaq advertised both fundraising accounts on his own social media, linking the charities directly to his operational role in the Al-Qassam Brigades.

“Terrorist organizations like Hamas rely on sophisticated financial facilitators and fraudulent schemes designed to exploit the public to sustain their operations.”

Scott Bessent, Secretary of the Treasury

Treasury did not disclose what portion of the overall $2 million moved through crypto specifically, saying only that Barika and Oualid sent al-Zaq hundreds of thousands of dollars in digital assets. The agency’s designation did not list any wallet addresses.

Al-Zaq asked for Bitcoin instead of Western Union in December 2021

Prosecutors say al-Zaq initially collected funds through Western Union before switching tactics. In December 2021, he allegedly asked a France-based partner to send Bitcoin or other digital currency instead, reasoning, according to the indictment cited by BeInCrypto, that crypto would make the money harder to trace back to its source and destination.

Investigators at Chainalysis separately traced blockchain activity tied to the scheme. In an October 2 post, the firm identified a counterparty linked to al-Zaq’s exchange deposit address that had also sent funds to exchange addresses previously flagged as receiving money from Hamas-linked wallets subject to Israeli seizure orders.

The network allegedly changed exchanges when scrutinized. When one platform asked about the source of funds in May 2023, the France-based partner reportedly moved the transfers to a different exchange rather than answer the inquiry.

DOJ unseals charges against al-Zaq and announces six arrests

The Justice Department unsealed criminal charges against al-Zaq and announced six arrests as part of a coordinated operation led by the FBI, with support from local law enforcement including the New York Police Department. Prosecutors allege al-Zaq and his associates raised about $1.75 million through December 2025, including at least $626,000 from donors inside the United States, a subset of the broader $2 million Treasury attributes to the full network.

The designations rely on Executive Order 13224 as amended by Executive Order 13886, the government’s core counterterrorism sanctions authority, under which the State Department first designated Hamas on October 31, 2001. Treasury said the action fits a broader, whole-of-government effort to dismantle Hamas fundraising ventures operating inside the United States, following its earlier October 2023 sanctioning of the Gaza-based crypto exchange Buy Cash.

Several questions remain unresolved in Treasury’s public account. The agency has not disclosed specific wallet addresses tied to al-Zaq, Barika or Oualid, nor specified what share of the $2 million moved through crypto versus bank transfers or money services businesses.

The BlockWest read. For exchanges and compliance teams, the real signal is the mid-stream exchange-hopping in May 2023, which shows source-of-funds questions still work when asked, but only if every venue in a chain asks them. Treasury’s refusal to publish wallet addresses also leaves exchanges guessing at which deposit addresses to flag, a gap Chainalysis’s independent tracing is now filling in the compliance market’s stead.

The Justice Department’s unsealed charges against al-Zaq now move toward prosecution, while the six individuals arrested in the coordinated FBI operation have not been separately identified or charged in the public record so far. Whether additional wallet addresses or exchange names surface in court filings will determine how much of the crypto side of the network investigators can still trace.

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