The Interdisciplinary Centre's (IDC) International Institute for Counter-Terrorism (ICT), in the Israeli city of Herzliya, reported that al-Nasr Brigades - Lawa al-Tawahid (the military wing of the Popular Resistance Committees), allegedly operating under the auspices of Hamas, recently found a new way to fund-raise, according to a Sunday report by the Jerusalem Post.
The ICT is reported to have discovered that a Facebook page called 'cash4ps' allows Hamas to carry out remittances out of the Gaza Strip using cryptocurrency, rendering anonymity for donors and beneficiaries, the media report suggested.
According to a report seen by The Jerusalem Post, specialists from ICT found a particular bitcoin address which revealed "an irregular increase in the scope of activity”. A "deeper review showed that the same address served a seemingly legitimate financial website by the name of cash4ps”, according to Jpost.
An entity allegedly linked to the bitcoin address was “identified as operating an account in a banned bank”, the report claimed. According to Jpost, the Bitcoin Abuse Database flagged the online cryptocurrency 'wallet' as a 'piggy bank' for Hamas.
The Islamic National Bank - earlier designated by Washington as a terrorist entity for alleged connections to Hamas - was also reported to have been spotted in the list of financial transactions, the media report said.
The ICT reportedly traced down recent online activity for the bank - which has several offices and a chain of ATMs across the Gaza Strip - on social media and concluded that the bank's Facebook page was providing links to a cryptocurrency address said to be connected with the al-Nasr Brigades.
The ICT discovered that the total transaction volume of the wallet reached an estimated 3,370 Bitcoin ($23,800,524). According to Israeli experts, the wallet has reportedly seen over 4,500 transactions in the last four years.
The ICT report also noted that a company linked to the wallet has at least two physical addresses in the Gaza Strip.
