Hamas military wing told donors to avoid sending crypto directly from Binance

[bbc.reporter]

This is headshaking heheheheh. It appears that if you want your wallet to be safe and to not be included in possible sanctions or on a list of possible sanctions, it might be a good choice to avoid Bybit, OKX, Kast and Redotpay. There were rumors that wallets were noted as high risk by blockchain analysis companies after making deposits and withdrawals on HTX, the exchange of Justin Sun.



Al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, told potential donors that it would prefer if they didn’t use Binance to transfer funds to the militant group’s wallet, according to documents released by the U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ).

Instead, it listed Trust Wallet, Bybit, OKX, Kast and Redotpay as applications donors could use to transfer funds to an external TRON wallet. The wallet receiving the donations was an external address on the TRON blockchain and was not identified in the filing as belonging to any of those companies.

The Al-Qassam Brigades letter, which appears in full in a DoJ asset-seizure warrant, advised using Tether’s USDT stablecoin and the TRC-20 network, which is used to create and manage fungible tokens on the Tron blockchain.

“It is preferable not to use the ‘BINANCE’ platform to transfer support; and not to enter any data indicating our official name so that your wallet is not blocked and for your safety as well (entering any fictitious data as the recipient of the transfer); You can transfer through the application: trust wallet, RedotPay, OKX, Kast, BYBIT…,” Al-Qassam Brigades said in the letter.

Read in full https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2026/09/16/hamas-military-wing-told-donors-to-avoid-binance-use-bybit-okx-and-others-instead

[PX-Z]

They really recommends cex like okx and bybit? Is this legit message/announcement from them? Seriously, they're stupid. Did they really expect authorities to simply ignore it? Recommending cex in this context could obviously attract additional scrutiny toward those platforms.

Now I am curious to see how the authorities respond to these exchanges, and what the executives of okx and bybit think about being potentially scrutinized because of this.

[Oshosondy]

They really recommends cex like okx and bybit? Is this legit message/announcement from them? Seriously, they're stupid. Did they really expect authorities to simply ignore it? Recommending cex in this context could obviously attract additional scrutiny toward those platforms.

The problem is that crypto is pseudonymous, while some like monero is anonymous. Another problem is that anyone can be a terrorists. A terrorist can be good person in the public, but helping terrorists to receive money. Some will be traced but I do not think all can be traced. That is very difficult to do even it is beyond what the exchanges can completely avoid. Even terrorists are able to make use of fiat as there are also reports like that. People should know that terrorists money can also be in the bank.

[348Judah]

I don't expect them to be making use of a centralized exchange for some of their transactions if they don't want to be traced or apply sanction; making this announcement is just the way we see it, appearing as if they are endorsing a specific exchange, while some are being cautioned to be used. I don't see any big deal in them making use of a non-custodial wallet that would prevent them from any form of revealing their identity when trying to make a transaction from an exchange.

[Synchronice]

I feel like they are trolling authorities. First of all, it makes no sense to publicly announce that this or that exchanges are recommended for donating crypto for such an organization because you are basically making the road to you public and especially available for authorities.
The funny aspect of this statement is that Trust Wallet, Bybit, OKX and other exchanges now will get a headache from authorities even though they aren't guilty and someone trolled them.

P.S. No exchange or service should be used to support such organizations! Yes, we all support financial freedom and anonymous transactions in general but everything has limits.

[Zlantann]

This is headshaking heheheheh. It appears that if you want your wallet to be safe and to not be included in possible sanctions or on a list of possible sanctions, it might be a good choice to avoid Bybit, OKX, Kast and Redotpay. There were rumors that wallets were noted as high risk by blockchain analysis companies after making deposits and withdrawals on HTX, the exchange of Justin Sun.

It would be senseless to sanction all exchange users because an organisation used the exchange. An investigation should be carried out, and fraudulent transactions should be identified. Binance is now using this news for promotion, as they portray the exchange as clean. None of them are safe. Thank you for the heads-up anyway.

They really recommends cex like okx and bybit? Is this legit message/announcement from them? Seriously, they're stupid. Did they really expect authorities to simply ignore it? Recommending cex in this context could obviously attract additional scrutiny toward those platforms.

Now I am curious to see how the authorities respond to these exchanges, and what the executives of okx and bybit think about being potentially scrutinized because of this.

Based on some publications, the information was gotten from an informant, so it might be true. I don't think they are stupid because this information might have been leaked by an insider. OKX even confirmed that they have already identified the wallet and that they would have confiscated any funds that were transferred there. Other exchanges that were mentioned have not made official statements regarding this finding.

[PX-Z]

.... I don't think they are stupid because this information might have been leaked by an insider.

I don't think you understand my point. But here again, what's your thoughts of Hamas announcing publicly that, "use these xxx cex instead to transfer your donations to us". Do you think authorities will let these xxx exchanges be used for money laundering without knowing those accounts sending donations to a terrosits group? Of course not, even the execs of these exchanges will do anything to prevent such thing to avoid fines and penalties from authorities.

[Zlantann]

.... I don't think they are stupid because this information might have been leaked by an insider.

I don't think you understand my point. But here again, what's your thoughts of Hamas announcing publicly that, "use these xxx cex instead to transfer your donations to us". Do you think authorities will let these xxx exchanges be used for money laundering without knowing those accounts sending donations to a terrosits group? Of course not, even the execs of these exchanges will do anything to prevent such thing to avoid fines and penalties from authorities.

The answers we don't have are who the message was sent to, how, and in what form. It could be in the form of an internal memo secretly sent to donors. A highly sanctioned organisation like Hamas would have mastered the art of sending coded messages. I don't think this message was publicly sent to the sponsors; it was exposed by an insider who is an informant of the US goverment.

[robelneo]

They really recommends cex like okx and bybit? Is this legit message/announcement from them? Seriously, they're stupid. Did they really expect authorities to simply ignore it? Recommending cex in this context could obviously attract additional scrutiny toward those platforms.

Yes, that would make them the next target because they are being recommended even if these donors do not use these CEX the fact that it was mentioned they are under the radar now, stupid Hammas 

Now I am curious to see how the authorities respond to these exchanges, and what the executives of okx and bybit think about being potentially scrutinized because of this.

CEXs do not want to be under strict radar; they will likely cooperate with the authorities and might issue a statement regarding this matter.

[Bitcoin_Arena]

But a few days back I saw news of DOJ claiming that Binance was being used to launder money for sanctioned Iranians. I don't know the extent of the accusation, but such things usually happen right before some lawsuits and fines.

At this point in time, no exchange feels safe because the coins have to move from address to address with time. Maybe we shall reach a point where all coins are labelled as dirty 

And why are they using USDT, which can be frozen at any time anyway?

[Z-tight]

But a few days back I saw news of DOJ claiming that Binance was being used to launder money for sanctioned Iranians.

A few years ago they were also accused of knowingly allowing transactions linked to Hamas to successfully move through their exchange and to the desination wallets. It was part of the case that led to Binance being fined ~4.3B in settlements with the department of justice.

Did these incidents make binance tighten their kyc/aml policies on Iranian linked groups? And is that why Hamas' military have sent this letter to their potential donors, to avoid binance.

[Bitcoin_Arena]

But a few days back I saw news of DOJ claiming that Binance was being used to launder money for sanctioned Iranians.

A few years ago they were also accused of knowingly allowing transactions linked to Hamas to successfully move through their exchange and to the desination wallets. It was part of the case that led to Binance being fined ~4.3B in settlements with the department of justice.

Did these incidents make binance tighten their kyc/aml policies on Iranian linked groups? And is that why Hamas' military have sent this letter to their potential donors, to avoid binance.

So this was the article i was talking about
1. US prosecutors say Chinese groups used Binance to launder $61mn from Iranian oil deals
2. U.S. Attorney Seeks Forfeiture Of $61 Million In Cryptocurrency From The Iranian Military’s Black-Market Oil Sales

it's a new case compared to the other one that happened a couple of years back. Obviously tightening the policies on aq specific group is not easy as they can always use proxy accounts. I believe Iranian nationals are banned from using the platform so they use person or companies linked to other countries as said in the article.

[coin-investor]

At this point in time, no exchange feels safe because the coins have to move from address to address with time. Maybe we shall reach a point where all coins are labelled as dirty 

That's likely going to happen with so many tools created to track addresses and names of the sender and recipient; such a thing is unavoidable, as we have no control over where the money comes from, coming from our sender, unless the sender or the receiver uses mixers for their transaction.
Exchanges should update their security to flag users who receive such funds or receive warnings from authorities.