The Information Service of the Civil Guard has arrested in Barcelona an alleged jihadist expert in cryptocurrencies who had formed a network with international branches to raise funds and send them to the terrorist group Daesh. In this large-scale operation – due to the “large movements” carried out by the arrested person – the CNI, the FBI and Europol have participated.
According to police sources, the alleged jihadist is a young man born in 1993 with enormous knowledge in new technologies and economics. He is a Jordanian computer engineer, but with a Spanish passport. Until his arrest, he had managed to send what would be equivalent to 200,000 euros in cryptocurrencies to the Islamic State in Syria and Turkey. He has been sent to provisional prison by order of the Central Court of Instruction No. 6 of the National Court, from where the actions have been coordinated.
The peculiarity of this operation lies in the fact that from the beginning – two years ago – it has been in the hands of the economic experts of the Information Service of the Armed Institute, and not that an operation against terrorism has led to financing issues after the eventual searches. . From the first moment, cryptocurrencies have been at the center of the investigation, according to the same sources.
The role that the arrested person had acquired was that of fundraiser. The detainee was the owner of several cryptocurrency addresses that operated in three different networks and were linked to multiple addresses, forming a network with branches in several countries whose purpose was to capture funds and transmit them to the terrorist group. A tangle of branches to try to leave no virtual trace.
The individual was not radicalized into violence; No signs have been found that he was preparing any type of attack. His profile was much more technical, a person who went through university. Civil Guard agents will now be in charge of analyzing the huge amount of seized material: more than a million messages, according to sources close to the investigation. After the analysis of this information – the case remains open – more arrests or the opening of new lines of investigation are not ruled out.
The use of cryptocurrencies to finance terrorism is not a new practice. It was already developed during the beginning of the last decade. That is why the Civil Guard intelligence team has been implementing research activities for years on this new method of transmitting value with the aim of preventing and detecting that it could be used for the financing of terrorist activities. This aspect of terrorist financing increased in intensity during—and after—the coronavirus pandemic.
The health situation experienced in 2020 served as a catalyst for this new security threat, promoting the emergence of new terrorist trends specialized in the economic field to compensate for the loss of personal mobility that was restricted in several countries for health reasons.
In this way, these current sophisticated means of financing promoted by fully specialized crypto-jihadists severely complicate the investigations of the security services. It is at this point where international cooperation becomes one of the most decisive instruments to be able to neutralize these networks, since the activity carried out through them is increasingly important and has become one of the priorities of the security agencies in the fight against terrorism.
The activity carried out by the network with which the detainee was related had not gone unnoticed by the international security services, according to the Armed Institute. And this is because it had a great impact in the form of great economic movements. Thus, during this investigation there has been the notable participation of the French DGSI, the American FBI, the Swedish SÄPO and Europol. Likewise, at the national level, the CNI has participated.
