U.S. Department of Justice Seizes Approximately $560,000 in Hamas-Related Cryptocurrency and Takes Over Website
The U.S. Department of Justice announced that it seized approximately $560,000 in cryptocurrency intended for Hamas, authorized by a court action, and took control of the domain names and servers used for fundraising and recruitment.
Five publicly available affidavits indicate that three cryptocurrency seizure warrants dated March 25, June 25, and October 10, 2025, correspond to the aforementioned amount; two orders dated July 29 and August 18, 2026, target the online infrastructure. The initial action recovered approximately $201,400 from wallets associated with the Al-Qassam Brigades, which had transferred over $1.5 million since October 2024. The FBI's Albuquerque field office took control of the main site Alqassam.ps and other domain names and servers, intercepting subsequent donations and obtaining information on thousands of individuals attempting to contact donors through cryptocurrency or traditional channels. The Department of Justice stated that the assets and infrastructure were originally controlled by the organization's military wing. U.S. Attorney Jeanine Ferris Pirro stated that efforts to disrupt its fundraising network will continue.
The $560,000 is the amount seized, not the total funds of the organization. The list will enter subsequent counter-terrorism investigations, which does not equate to full prosecution. The takeover of the website cuts off this public entry point.
On-chain traceability and human intelligence were included in the same set of warrants. Compliance departments will add relevant addresses and domain names to a blacklist.
In market mechanisms, the buyer is the law enforcement agency tasked with counter-terrorism, and the seller is the seized on-chain balances and domain names. The driving force is the execution announcement of the warrants, which is an enforcement event. Funds exit circulation and enter government custody. Beneficiaries are compliance and on-chain analytics firms, while the burden falls on the increased risk of misidentification for stablecoin transfers and similarly named addresses.
Source: Public Information
ABAB AI Insight
The Department of Justice has transformed cryptocurrency fundraising from "hard to trace" to "capable of being seized in batches." The three 2025 funding warrants combined with two 2026 infrastructure warrants indicate a strategy of first following the money and then dismantling the facade. The amounts of $200,000 and $1.5 million suggest that changing the entry point will still leave traces of traffic. The takeover of the main site is not for publicity but to intercept ongoing donations and retain contact lists. The case is led by Albuquerque rather than New York, indicating that it follows intelligence leads rather than financial centers. While $560,000 is a small figure in terms of war financing, it is significant in the narrative of "cryptocurrency being untouchable."
The capital pathway involves forfeiture and compliance expenditures. Exchanges and issuers are increasing address screening, and analytics companies are selling tracking services. The motivation is to cut off public fundraising pages; the strategy is to replace tracing individual transactions with control over domain names. Stablecoin issuers will face more law enforcement inquiries. Both misidentification and oversight will increase simultaneously.
Comparable cases include the Silk Road forfeiture, mixer prosecutions, and traditional hawala crackdowns. The cryptocurrency version integrates servers and wallets into the same press release. The phase has shifted from "can it be traced" to "how to handle the list after tracing."
This represents a regulatory change. The mechanism is: designated terrorist organizations with court warrants make addresses and domain names seizable property. The public ledger of the blockchain provides a traceable surface, while human intelligence provides the starting point. Once fundraising requires a public URL, it falls within the reach of U.S. jurisdiction.
ABAB News · Cognitive Laws
When a public URL is needed to receive payments, cryptocurrency does not automatically become invisible.
First seizing wallets and then domain names cuts off the entry point, not the entire inventory.
Small forfeitures can undermine the pricing of "untouchability."