U.S. Treasury Targets Gaza Crypto Business in Sanctions to Squeeze Hamas

The U.S. Department of the Treasury Wednesday sanctioned several individuals and entities it says are supporting Hamas terrorist operations, including a Gaza-based exchange.

Among others, the sanctions targeted Buy Cash Money and Money Transfer Company, a company that the Treasury said had a long history of financing terrorist groups.

“The United States is taking swift and decisive action to target Hamas’s financiers and facilitators following its brutal and unconscionable massacre of Israeli civilians, including children,” said Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen in a statement.

Buy Cash , previously tied to wallets seized by Israel’s National Bureau for Counter Terrorist Financing in 2021, is accused of “having materially assisted, sponsored, or provided financial, material, or technological support for, or goods or services to or in support of, Hamas,” according to the Treasury. The business included bitcoin among the assets in which it dealt.

The owner of the financial exchange, Ahmed M. M. Alaqad, was also sanctioned on Wednesday.