Enlarge / Uh, you did not purchase your masks at FaceMaskCenter.com, proper? (credit score: Kilito Chan / Getty Pictures)
The COVID-19 pandemic, and thousands and thousands of individuals determined for scarce protecting tools like masks and Tyvek fits, has offered a bonanza for scammers. Now, in line with the US Division of Justice, evidently even ISIS has gotten in on the sport.
In a sequence of civil and felony complaints and forfeiture notices launched this week, the Justice Division has revealed that it seized a whole lot of bitcoin and ethereum accounts, thousands and thousands of {dollars}, and 4 web sites from recognized Islamic extremist teams that had been utilizing these accounts and funds to assist terrorist operations. Prosecutors say the forfeited crypto property from the teams, which embrace ISIS, the al-Qassam Brigades, and al Qaeda, characterize “the federal government’s largest-ever seizure of cryptocurrency within the terrorism context.” The cryptocurrency haul alone totals greater than $1 million in line with Chainalysis, a blockchain-focused agency whose instruments had been used within the investigation.
Among the many jihadist fundraising efforts the DOJ has nixed, nevertheless, one stands out as notably brazen. Court docket paperwork [PDF] element how an ISIS agent allegedly ran a rip-off web site for COVID-19 private protecting tools, or PPE, often called FaceMaskCenter.com.
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