Banned terrorist organizations Ansar Al Islam (AI) and Ansarullah Bangla Team (ABT) have sent a huge amount of money to a terrorist group in Kashmir in the form of cryptocurrency, according to some reports.
This was revealed by two AI terrorists in September 2019. These terrorists were arrested by a Special Action Group of the Counter-Terrorism and Transnational Crime Unit of the Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP).
These two arrested terrorists acknowledged themselves as Awal Newaz alias Sohel Newaz and Fazle Rabbi Chowdhury. The Ansar Al Islam (AI) terrorists revealed during the investigation that terrorist outfits have been funded through Bitcoins since 2014. They also admitted that they have received a huge amount of money from Pakistan and Gulf countries in the form of cryptocurrency. The terror group had forwarded some amount of these funds to a Kashmir based terror group through a cryptocurrency.
Bangladesh has banned virtual currency. The government of Bangladesh issued a notice back in December 2017 asking its nationals to avoid making transactions in cryptocurrency.
Both the terrorists admitted that they have stopped collecting money through ‘hundi’ because law enforcement agencies are having a close watch over it. They have now shifted to the Bitcoin system for transactions as it is an easier way to exchange illegal funds used in organizing terrorist activities.
Ahmedul Islam, the Additional Deputy Commissioner of the Special Action Group, said that terror financing is largely dependent on cryptocurrency. He said that it is very difficult for government agencies to monitor the illegal transaction of Bitcoin as they lack advanced technical devices to monitor it. It’ll be a big challenge for law enforcers to check the virtual currency in the future.
The US government recovered around $2 million worth of cryptocurrency in August 2020 when they seized hundreds of cryptocurrency accounts, four websites and four Facebook accounts that were being used by the terrorist groups.
