Kharon is a research and data analytics company that “provides reliable and actionable sanctions-related risk intelligence to prominent global financial institutions, multinational corporations, and public sector entities. Founded and led by former senior officials of the U.S. Department of the Treasury and staffed by a multilingual team of highly trained open-source intelligence analysts, Kharon identifies, analyzes, and maps material relationships between specific individuals and entities sanctioned by a range of governments and multinational bodies, including the U.N., U.S., and EU, and associated individuals and entities worldwide.” (Source: Kharon Linkedin page)
Recently, I had the opportunity to join the Kharon live webinar titled “Addressing Hamas’s Financing Operations: From Front Companies to Business Interests, Cryptocurrencies to Crowdsourcing”.
In this webinar, I learned interesting insights about how Hamas uses several instruments (i.e. digital money) in illicit trade to gain funding. Donations, physical movement of goods and trade-based money laundering play a major role in funding Hamas activities. Also, some of the raising and moving funds are performed through cryptocurrencies. One of the speakers in the webinar, Andrew Fierman, Head of Sanctions Strategy at Chainalysis Inc. made an interesting presentation about how terrorists use crypto.
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