Delhi Crime News: Cryptocurrency stolen from Delhi lands in Hamas wallets | Delhi News – Times of India

NEW DELHI: In winter 2021, delhi policeThe Special Cell was investigating a case of cryptocurrency theft of around Rs 4 crore from the wallet of a west Delhi businessman. Although police managed to "deep trace" some recipient wallet IDs, tracing the end users seemed difficult. Just then, Israel's intelligence agency Mossad communicated - as part of a routine intelligence exchange with its Indian counterparts - information about some suspicious wallets operated by terrorist groups to finance terrorism.
See also: Israel Palestine War live

Many of the wallet addresses on the list were being operated by the al Qassam brigades of Hamas, the Palestinian terrorist group, and had been "seized" by Israel's National Terrorist Financing Office.
A breakthrough came when the Intelligence Fusion and Strategic Operations (IFSO) unit of the Special Cell made a wallet match: several wallets that had received the Bitcoin and Ethereum assets from Delhi were operated by the cyber terrorism wing of Hamas.
While Israel has responded strongly to Hamas for Saturday's attack, sources said intelligence agencies have their antennae alert about the terrorist group's renewed efforts to raise funds through hacking in pro-Israel countries.
Even on Tuesday, the Israel Police cyber unit froze a large number of cryptocurrency accounts maintained by Hamas for fundraising. Israel Police said on X (formerly Twitter) that Hamas had launched a crypto fundraising campaign after the start of the latest terrorist attacks. Israeli authorities also urged crypto exchange Binance to transfer the seized funds to that country's state treasury.
The Delhi case was the first case of Hamas activity in India. Special Cell officials said the details of the investigation were communicated to the relevant authorities at the time. Former DCP (Special Cell) KPS Malhotra's team had investigated the case. "Yes, our investigation led us to several portfolios linked to the al Qassam brigades," Malhotra confirmed on Tuesday.
The matter, the police said, was first reported in 2019 at the Paschim Vihar police station and the investigation was later transferred to the Special Cell by court order, police officers aware of the investigation recalled. After the link to Hamas was discovered, technical analysis revealed that one of the seized wallets belonged to Naseer Ibrahim Abdulla in Gaza and Hamas operatives such as Ahmed Marzooq in Giza and Ahmed QH Safi in Ramallah in Palestine. “The cryptocurrencies were sent through several private wallets and finally landed in these suspicious wallets,” a police officer revealed.