Financial institutions need to be on the lookout for suspicious activity connected to financing terrorist organizations, such as Hamas, the Treasury Department said in an alert.
FinCEN also said that virtual asset service providers should report suspicious transactions linked to Hamas as soon as possible. The warning comes shortly after a report from the WSJ said that Hamas, along with other militant groups, used crypto as a financing tool ahead of attacks in Israel earlier this month. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., along with more than a hundred other lawmakers including both Democrats and Republicans, said they were concerned about how Hamas raised millions of dollars through crypto in a letter sent to the Biden administration on Tuesday.
"Terrorist organizations have historically used and will likely continue to use traditional, fiat-based methods such as financial institutions, hawalas, and shell companies as their primary financing vehicles," it wrote.