Israeli Court Decides That 150 Blocked Wallets Contain Blocked Wallets That Authorities May Confiscate

Magistrate Court in Tel Aviv has made a decision authorizing the Israeli government to seize all the cryptocurrency in more than 150 digital wallets that it has banned for allegedly aiding terrorist organizations.

In a Dec. 18 article in local Israeli media, Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz claims that the court’s Dec. 15 decision has already permitted officials to take a further $33,500 from online wallets linked to the Islamist militant group Hamas.

Prior to the court decision, Israeli police were only legally permitted to collect digital assets that had been directly linked to terrorist conduct and were prohibited from seizing further cash within the same wallets. The wallets contained $750,000, which the authorities recovered in December 2021.

Since 2007, Hamas has served as the de facto ruler of Palestine’s Gaza Strip, and the United States, the European Union, Israel, and the United Kingdom all categorize it as a terrorist group in whole or in part.

Hamas started requesting Bitcoin payments

Hamas started requesting Bitcoin payments from its followers in January 2019 as a way to circumvent financial isolation and restrictions.

On July 9, 2021, Gantz issued a directive allowing security personnel to seize cryptocurrency accounts thought to be connected to the militant wing of Hamas.

Israeli investigators also seized 30 cryptocurrency wallets from 12 exchange accounts connected to Hamas in February.

The exact value of the cryptocurrency assets confiscated was kept a secret.

It has been established that the use of cryptocurrency in terrorism funding is comparatively insignificant. Early in 2022, the blockchain analytics company Chainalysis found that just a small percentage of cryptocurrency funds are used for illegal purposes.

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