A man in the US has been sentenced to more than 30 years in prison after a court found him guilty of converting $185,000 to cryptocurrency and transferring it to ISIS.
According to the US Justice Department, Mohammed Chhipa, who lived in Virginia, would raise funds online through social media accounts and collect it by hand, before converting the funds into cryptocurrency and sending it to Turkey, where it was smuggled to ISIS in Syria by female intermediaries.
The case, stretching back to 2023, has been full of twists and turns, including Chhipa writing letters to the judge to ask that his lawyer be replaced. He also wrote emails to the court to insist he be allowed to communicate with a woman he claims to be his wife. Allison Ekren is a US citizen who grew up in Kansas, converted to Islam and joined ISIS in Syria.
Court documents show that Chhipa, 35, was born in India in 1989, but became a naturalised US citizen.
He was convicted by a federal jury in December of conspiracy to provide material support or resources to a designated foreign terrorist organisation and four counts of providing and attempting to provide material support or resources to a designated foreign terrorist organisation.
“This defendant directly financed ISIS in its efforts to commit vile terrorist atrocities against innocent citizens in America and abroad,” said US Attorney General Pamela Bondi. “This severe sentence illustrates that if you fund terrorism, we will prosecute you and put you behind bars for decades.”
FBI director Kash Patel echoed those sentiments. “With this sentencing, this defendant will pay the price for helping finance ISIS, a brutal terrorist organisation,” he said.
Although the court case concerning Chhipa has been litigated for several years, it is the latest on a federal level to involve cryptocurrency assets being sent to ISIS, Hamas and other organisations it deems to be involved in terrorism.
In March, an investigation originating from the FBI's field office in New Mexico led to the confiscation of $201,400 in crypto funds that was intended to finance Hamas.
The assets were traced from fundraising addresses controlled by Hamas “that were used to launder more than $1.5 million in virtual currency” since October last year, the Justice Department said.
“These seizures show that this office will search high and low for every cent of money going to fund Hamas,” said US attorney Edward Martin. “Wherever it is found, and in whatever form of currency."
That investigation, and the recent sentencing involving Chhipa, come as the US continues to define its vision for an unrestrained cryptocurrency sector.
Crypto proponents were some of the most prolific contributors to President Donald Trump's campaign last year as they sought less regulation compared with former president Joe Biden's approach.
Shortly after Mr Trump entered office in January, US officials dropped various lawsuits and investigations into crypto companies.
In early March, Mr Trump signed an executive order establishing a federal strategic Bitcoin reserve, and later hosted the first White House Crypto Summit.
It is a complete about-face from 2021, when Mr Trump said in a Fox Business interview that Bitcoin, one of the flagship crypto brands, was a “disaster waiting to happen” and claimed that it hurt the dollar.
Despite increasing enthusiasm and use over the past decade, criticism and scepticism still abounds on crypto, which, unlike fiat currencies, lacks an overall regulatory apparatus and is mostly decentralised, making it appealing to groups with nefarious intentions.
Last year, while giving a speech about artificial intelligence and power grids, former energy secretary Stephen Chu, who served in the administration of Barack Obama, briefly touched on his concerns about the criminal abuse of cryptocurrency and blockchain technology.
“Roughly speaking half the electricity of data centres is used to mine Bitcoin type currencies,” he said. “What is it used for? Money laundering and evading taxes … so half of the electricity doing that is not a good thing, personally it should be outlawed, but because it’s making people a lot of money, there’s a lot of forcing not wanting to outlaw it."
At the start of 2025, Russia announced that it would be banning crypto mining in several locations throughout the country in an effort to preserve energy resources.
Cryptocurrency mining is generally defined as the process by which digital assets are obtained, most famously initiated by Bitcoin. They are secured through a blockchain network.
