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NEW DELHI: In the winter of 2021, Delhi Police's Special Cell was investigating a case of cryptocurrency theft of around Rs 4 crore from the wallet of a west Delhi businessman. Though the cops managed to 'deep trace' a few recipient wallet IDs, tracking the end users appeared difficult. Just at the time, Israel's intelligence agency, Mossad, communicated - as part of routine intelligence exchange with their Indian counterparts - information about some suspect wallets operated by terrorist groups for terror funding.Many of the wallet addresses on the list were being operated by the al Qassam brigades of Hamas, the Palestinian terror group, and had been 'seized' by Israel's National Bureau for counter terror financing.Also See: Israel Palestine War LiveA breakthrough arrived when the Special Cell's Intelligence Fusion & Strategic Ops (IFSO) unit ran a match on the wallets: several wallets that had received the Bitcoin and Ethereum assets from Delhi were operated by the cyber terrorism wing of Hamas.While Israel has hit back strongly at Hamas for Saturday's attack, sources said the intelligence agencies have their antennae up about renewed efforts by the terror outfit to collect funds by hacking in pro-Israel countries.Even on Tuesday, the cyber unit of Israel Police froze a large number of cryptocurrency accounts held by Hamas for fundraising. Israel Police said on X (formerly Twitter) that Hamas had launched a crypto fundraising campaign after the start of the latest terror attacks. Israeli authorities also urged crypto exchange Binance to transfer the seized funds to that country's state treasury.The case in Delhi was the first instance of Hamas' activity in India. Special Cell officers said that the probe details were communicated to the relevant authorities at the time. Former DCP (Special Cell) KPS Malhotra's team had investigated the case. "Yes, our investigation had led us to several wallets linked to the al Qassam brigades," Malhotra confirmed on Tuesday.

The matter, cops said, was first reported in 2019 at Paschim Vihar police station and the investigation was later transferred to the Special Cell on court orders, cops privy to the investigation recalled. After the Hamas link was unearthed, technical analysis revealed that one of the seized wallets belonged to Naseer Ibrahim Abdulla in Gaza and to Hamas operatives like Ahmed Marzooq in Giza and Ahmed QH Safi in Ramallah in Palestine. "The cryptocurrencies were routed through various private wallets and finally landed in these suspected wallets," a police officer revealed.

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Cryptocurrency stolen from Delhi lands in Hamas wallets - IndiaTimes