The U.S. Treasury sanctioned a Hamas financing network on October 2, saying the scheme moved more than $2 million to the group through sham charities and cryptocurrency wallets, according to the Office of Foreign Assets Control. The action blacklists a Gaza-based deputy in Hamas’s military wing, two fundraisers based in France, and the two charities they ran, as part of a multi-jurisdictional operation led by the FBI.
Who OFAC designated
OFAC named Saleem Abdallah Saleem al-Zaq, a battalion deputy in Hamas’s Al-Qassam Brigades, who the department says oversaw a financial network that used money services businesses and cryptocurrency wallets to move funds to the group. Treasury noted that al-Zaq also worked as a photographer in Hamas’s media office and attended official events near senior officials, underscoring his trusted position. The designations also cover Faouzi Barika and Amel Oualid, who ran purported charities in France, and the two organizations they controlled: Association Baraka and Ensemble C Mieux.
How the scheme moved money
From 2020 through 2026, Barika, Oualid and al-Zaq collected more than $2 million for Hamas, roughly $1.5 million of it after the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, according to Treasury. The two fundraisers sent hundreds of thousands of dollars in cryptocurrency to al-Zaq, who Treasury says funneled the money to the Al-Qassam Brigades. Al-Zaq also promoted the fundraisers’ donation accounts on his own social media.
“Terrorist organizations like Hamas rely on sophisticated financial facilitators and fraudulent schemes designed to exploit the public to sustain their operations,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in the announcement. “Treasury will continue to identify, isolate, and impose consequences on those who provide Hamas with the financial lifelines it needs to survive.”
A wider crackdown on crypto sanctions evasion
The case extends a run of U.S. enforcement actions tying cryptocurrency to sanctions evasion, following this week’s designation of the Tren de Aragua network that laundered ATM heist funds through crypto and an earlier seizure of $560,000 in crypto linked to Hamas. The designations were issued under Executive Order 13224, as amended, and freeze any U.S. assets of the named individuals and entities, while foreign financial institutions that knowingly facilitate significant transactions for them risk secondary sanctions.
