Canadian accused of trying to raise bitcoin for Islamic State

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US authorities have accused a Toronto man of using the bitcoin cryptocurrency and creating GoFundMe accounts in an attempt to raise more than US$20,000 for the Islamic State terrorist group.

An unsealed US criminal complaint in New York describes Khalilullah Yousef as a 34-year-old Canadian citizen and one of four members of an alleged terrorist fundraising plot.

Mr Yousef was arrested by police in Canada this week and now faces an extradition offer from the United States. The other three suspects are US citizens arrested in the eastern United States and are in their 20s or 30s.

All are accused of conspiring to provide material support to the Islamic State (IS). US authorities say detectives uncovered the plot by using a confidential informant to spy on an encrypted group chat.

In this discussion, which began in early 2021, participants reportedly discussed the possibility of raising funds to support the terrorist group, including by launching crowdfunding sites in the name of charitable causes.

But the ultimate intention was to help ISIS buy bullets and ammunition, according to a sworn statement by US Federal Bureau of Investigation Special Agent Melissa Garcia.

In court documents, she states that more than US$25,000 in total in cryptocurrency funds was funneled from the conspirators to an anonymous Islamic State enabler who claimed to be part of the group’s central media organization.

The FBI says the lion’s share of donated cryptocurrency funds came from the Canadian suspect. He is accused of sending the equivalent of US$20,348 in bitcoins in 26 transactions between February 2021 and July 2022.

It is unclear how Mr. Yousef acquired the money. The criminal complaint says he created several GoFundMe pages where he urged donors to donate money under the guise of, among other things, helping raise money for certain families in need for Eid.

The complaint says Mr Yousuf came to the attention of US authorities after the March 2021 arrest of another suspected IS supporter. FBI searches of the suspects’ computers revealed more than 1,700 communications implicating Mr. Yousuf, according to the criminal complaint filed in court.

Last winter, when Ottawa invoked the Emergencies Act, Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland announced that the federal government was taking steps to better monitor the flow of money online.

We are expanding the scope of Canada’s anti-money laundering and anti-terrorist financing rules to cover the crowdfunding platforms and payment service providers they use. These changes cover all forms of transactions, including digital assets such as cryptocurrencies, she said at the time.

The federal government has given more powers to the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Center of Canada to examine large and suspicious transactions.

In a statement, the organization said it could not comment on the new US case. FinTRAC is prohibited from discussing information it may have received or financial intelligence it may or may not have disclosed to law enforcement or national security agencies, spokeswoman Erica Constant said.

GoFundMe said in an email that it is in full compliance with all applicable rules and regulations: While we do not comment on ongoing legal investigations, GoFundMe’s Terms of Service explicitly prohibit activities that support terrorism , and our policy is to cooperate. with official law enforcement requests, spokesman Jalen Drummond said.

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