ISRAEL AT WARIsraeli initiative gets terrorist organizations' donations info in order to freeze them
ISRAEL AT WAR
Israeli initiative gets terrorist organizations' donations info in order to freeze them
The website showmetheirmoney.org wants to file lawsuits around the world to stop fundraising for terrorist organizations such as Hamas and Hezbollah, which are done in part under the guise of helping the needy and refugees
Israeli citizens from various fields of specialization launched a website with the aim of collecting information on donations and transfers of funds to terrorist organizations - such as Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and Hezbollah - in order to take legal action in the world to freeze and stop the funds. The operators of the site, called "Show Me Their Money", wish to remain anonymous at this stage.
The site, showmetheirmoney.org, was created in response to the massacre that occurred on October 7. “Through this platform, we urge people from all around the world to share information related to the operational and financial structures of various terrorist organizations, including Hamas, Hezbollah, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, The Islamic Republic of Iran, The Shia Militias in Iraq, The Houthi insurgency in Yemen, and others,” it says. “We are particularly interested in receiving tips regarding revenue-generating resources and assets like real estate, financial entities (such as banks) knowingly or unknowingly supporting these organizations, specific bank accounts, money laundering activities, and individuals involved in their financial and civil or operational networks."
The initiative invites the general public all over the globe, including the Muslim world, to join the effort and report what they know on the platform. “For understandable reasons, the team members - which consists of researchers, technologists, lawyers, and people who have been involved in researching terrorist financing for years - choose at this stage to remain anonymous in order to concentrate the main effort in gathering information and processing it into effective products."
According to one of the initiators, "The uniqueness of the initiative is that it actually opens, perhaps for the first time, a public call to people around the world to come and give information to a civil body that is not identified with state bodies."
As published by the National Headquarters for the Economic Fight against Terrorism in the Ministry of Defense, since October 7, there has been a significant increase in fundraising around the world for terrorist organizations through crowdfunding projects.
One of the goals of the civil enterprise is to use legal tools to file lawsuits and freeze orders for funds that terrorist organizations raise under the guise of donations for the purpose of protecting human rights.
"Terrorists around the world are abusing 'classic' crowdfunding platforms and running fundraising campaigns through social networks and websites in order to reach as many supporters as possible," reads a study of aspects of terrorist financing in crowdfunding activities published by the Authority for the Prohibition of Money Laundering at the Ministry of Justice in December 2021.
"Supporters and financiers of terrorist organizations disguise the true mission of the campaign, so as not to be a focus of interest among the authorities," the study further states. "Usually they do not declare the purpose of the money, but portray its goals in a legitimate way (donation to the needy, aid to refugees, etc.). There are many cases in which supporters made payments to the recruitment sites through means that preserve anonymity (pre-loaded cards, for example) to increase the difficulty in locating the supporters and tracking the financial goal."
