BRAND NEW YORK (1010 WINS) – Earlier today (Wednesday), the Department of Justice announced the arrest of a man in Queens and a guy in New Jersey on charges of providing financial support to ISIS through the use of bitcoin and other ways.
Witness testimony from the person who helped arrange the gifts led to the arrests of the two guys, as well as a man from Virginia and a man from Canada on Wednesday morning.
Both Seema Rahman, 25, and Abdullah At Taqi, 23, of Edison, New Jersey, were arrested and charged with conspiring to offer material support to ISIS.
The federal court in Brooklyn heard the arraignment of Taqi and Rahman. A total of around $35,000 was allegedly donated by the four accused conspirators, according to the prosecution.
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Also, the guys and the middleman-turned-witness are accused of working together to spread a phoney donation link that looked like it was for a good cause but actually went to ISIS.
“This crowdfunding network used cryptocurrency, Bitcoin wallets, GoFundMe, and PayPal to collect and raise blood money to support ISIS, not for needy families as they fraudulently claimed in an attempt to deceive law enforcement,” said U.S. Attorney Breon Peace.
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As the Attorney General of the United States said, “I commend our prosecutors and the FBI’s New York Joint Terrorism Task Force for piercing the veil of secrecy to identify the perpetrators of this scheme, to reveal the true evil nature of these virtual money transfers, and to bring to justice those who seek to enable acts of violent extremism.”
