Practical advice. In February 2025, an address associated with the al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, responded to a person who asked how to donate cryptocurrencies. The post recommended avoiding sending the funds directly from Binance and cited Trust Wallet, RedotPay, OKX, Kast, and Bybit for making the transfer.
The response, obtained by an FBI human source, is reproduced in a seizure warrant issued by the US Department of Justice (DOJ). Please note, this document shows what the authors of the message advised donors; it does not demonstrate that the five services cited facilitated transfers to the organization.
Key Points
The message advised against direct transfers from Binance, while indicating that the platform could be used to purchase cryptocurrencies.
It recommended sending USDT on the Tron network (TRC-20) to an address outside of the services mentioned.
In this investigation, the DOJ says it seized approximately $560,000 in cryptocurrencies over several operations carried out in 2025.
Why the al-Qassam Brigades wanted to avoid Binance
The document at the heart of the case is a response sent on February 10, 2025 to a person who asked how to support the al-Qassam Brigades with cryptocurrencies. According to the DOJ seizure warrant, the message provided a receiving address and requested to send USDT on the Tron network (TRC-20).
He recommended not making the final transfer from Binance, while specifying that the platform could be used to buy cryptocurrencies. Trust Wallet, RedotPay, OKX, Kast and Bybit were cited as other ways to send funds to the specified address. The document does not specify why Binance was excluded at this stage, nor whether the five services cited were actually used by donors.
Trust Wallet opens the list of recommendations. This non-custodial wallet does not function like an account: the user generates and keeps their private keys themselves, without registration or identity verification, and no company has control of the funds. Binance bought the application in 2018 before making it an independent entity five years later.
Bybit and OKX belong to another category, that of centralized platforms operating outside the American regulatory perimeter. OKX also settled $505 million in February 2025 for carrying out an unlicensed money transmission activity in the United States, and has tightened its controls since.
Kast and RedotPay finally relate to payment: these cards backed by stablecoins allow you to spend USDT on any Visa or Mastercard terminal without using a traditional bank account.
We remind you once again that none of the companies cited in the document are implicated in the file, and that all apply identity verification procedures upon opening.
Crypto and terrorist financing: Traceability that has already pushed Hamas back
The al-Qassam Brigades have been collecting bitcoins since 2019 on their official website, with an address generated for each donor in order to cover their tracks. But the method did not resist chain analysis for long: in August 2020, the DOJ announced the seizure of more than 300 crypto accounts linked to three terrorist financing campaigns, including that of the armed wing of Hamas.
In April 2023, the organization ended up suspending its bitcoin campaign itself:
“Out of concern for the safety of donors and to spare them any harm. »
Press release from the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades announcing the cessation of their bitcoin collection, April 2023 – Source: Chainalysis
The end of public bitcoin collection in 2023 therefore did not mark the end of calls for donations in cryptocurrencies. In the message found by the FBI in February 2025, the al-Qassam Brigades requested USDT on the Tron network.
Investigators then followed the movements of several addresses linked to this collection and obtained seizure warrants. The DOJ says it seized approximately $560,000 in cryptocurrencies during several operations carried out in 2025.
