THELOGICALINDIAN - A PakistaniAmerican woman is adverse up to 20 years in bastille afterwards she accepted to allotment a agitator alignment and for committing acclaim agenda artifice to buy cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin But adverse to letters from about the web it wasnt Bitcoin that was acclimated to armamentarium the baleful bent operations
27-Year-Old New York Woman Funds ISIS, Commits Credit Fraud
Zoobia Shahnaz, a 27-year old New York hospital technician, has admitted to a Federal Court Judge that she took out a counterfeit $22,500 accommodation and a cardinal of counterfeit acclaim cards in adjustment to accession a admirable absolute of $62,000. The aloft funds were acclimated to buy Bitcoin and added cryptocurrencies.
In accession to artifice charges, Shahnaz is additionally accused of base $150,000 to armamentarium ISIS operations beyond the globe.
Shahnaz accepted to the accuse as allotment of a appeal accord with prosecutors. Oftentimes a actor can arrangement with prosecutors for a beneath acrimonious book if accuse are accepted to, or advice is provided that further’s an analysis or bigger supports the accuse of the case.
Related Reading: Indonesian Investigator Claims Bitcoin is Funding ISIS Operations
Even with the appeal deal, the adjudicator authoritative over Central Islip federal cloister in New York, Adjudicator Joanna Seybert, could book Shahnaz to up to 20 years in a federal prison.
Shahnaz – a U.S. aborigine – was apprehended by authorities from the Joint Terrorism Task Force aback in July 2017, as she was advancing to lath a flight to Pakistan, on her way to Syria. The analysis additionally appear that the actor was visiting “various agitated jihad-related websites and bulletin boards, and amusing media and messaging pages of accepted IS recruiters, facilitators and financiers.”
Major Media Demonizing Bitcoin, When Banks Were to Blame
Major media outlets everywhere were quick to point out that Bitcoin was acclimated to armamentarium ISIS’ administration of terror, however, it was a acceptable coffer wire that was acclimated as the agent to accelerate the funds beyond the globe. Bitcoin has afresh alone to one-year lows, and is aback in the headlines, but this time it’s alone accepting abrogating press, with abounding questioning the abiding validity of the arising technology.
Related Reading: Blaming Bitcoin for Aiding Terrorism, Money Laundering
Pundits are quick to demonize Bitcoin for everything: from actuality a Ponzi scheme, to a apparatus for money laundering, and now, for allotment agitator operations. Here the bald acknowledgment of Bitcoin and cryptocurrency in cloister abstracts was abundant for sensationalists to latch onto, absolutely apathy the actuality that a actual basal coffer wire was at the centermost of it all.
Crypto Not Typically an Effective Tool for Funding Terror
In this example, admitting Shahnaz accepting admission to cryptocurrencies, she ultimately chose to wire the funds to ISIS. This may be due to the actuality that agitator organizations are generally amid in abandoned locations generally hidden abroad from society, which makes application crypto to accession funds for their operations difficult and ineffective.
In September, during a Congressional House Financial Services Committee hearing, Fanusie revealed his allegation that agitator organizations such as ISIS have again bootless to armamentarium their bent operation using cryptocurrencies.
Without accessible admission to internet or electricity infrastructure, sending and accepting cryptocurrencies creates an insurmountable claiming that has beat terrorists from application the arising technology to armamentarium their bent activities.
Even admitting terrorists organizations like Al Qaeda and ISIS accept struggled appropriately far, Fanusie warned Congress that that could change in the future, and that the United States should adapt itself “for terrorists’ accretion acceptance of cryptocurrencies,” so the U.S. “can absolute the adeptness to about-face agenda bill markets into a altar for adulterous finance.”
