Cryptocurrency for ISIS: Gossipy American convicted

Mohammed C. collected more than 185,000 US dollars on social networks and then transferred it in the form of cryptocurrency. The money was used to support Islamic State fighters in Syria (ISIS), free female ISIS members imprisoned there and finance terrorist attacks. The American C., 35, is likely to spend several years in prison himself for this.

A jury at a US federal district court in Virginia found C. guilty of all five charges on Friday. These were four counts of supporting a foreign terrorist organization and one count of conspiracy to do so. According to the indictment, C. had a British ISIS fighter as an accomplice, who is apparently a fugitive and has therefore not yet been charged.

The convicted man faces a maximum of 20 years in prison for each of the five charges, i.e. a total of one hundred years. The sentence is unlikely to be that high, but anything other than several years in prison would be a surprise. According to court documents, the convicted man has repeatedly outed himself as a supporter of terrorism for years. In 2009, he stated at a border post between the USA and Canada that he wanted to travel to Iraq and kill Americans there.

Conviction offender with logorrhea

In the same year, he reportedly tried to hire himself out as a baggage handler at Dulles Airport (IAD) near the US capital Washington. During the interview for this position, he is said to have spoken of his admiration for the jihadist Anwar al-Awlaki and revealed that he wanted to travel to China to fight alongside Muslim Chinese there. From 2009, the then twenty-year-old is said to have repeatedly expressed his support for terrorist organizations, including al-Qaeda, online at least until 2015.

In 2019, he resumed this activity, this time in support of ISIS and various radical Muslims. He initially sent money to ISIS supporters in the Philippines. This earned him a house search by the FBI in August of that year.

Even this did not stop C. from collecting money for ISIS, both online and in cash, for at least three years from October 2019 at the latest. He then used the donations to buy cryptocurrency and transferred it to his accomplice in Turkey. There it was exchanged back into real money and smuggled to Syria. In the summer of 2021, however, one of the donors was an undercover FBI agent.

C. was arrested in May 2023. He has been in prison ever since. He has pleaded not guilty and can appeal against the sentence. The sentencing is scheduled for May 5. In addition, any remaining assets from his terrorist financing activities are to be confiscated.

The case is entitled USA v. Mohammed Azharuddin Chhipa and is pending in the US Federal District Court
for Eastern Virginia under case number 1:23-cr-97.

• The indictment

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