On Friday, September 18, 2026, the Tampa Bay Times reported that a federal grand jury has indicted a Lutz, Florida man on charges alleging he used cryptocurrency and online payment platforms to funnel money to Hamas, a U.S.-designated foreign terrorist organization.
Raed Yousef, 56, was arrested Wednesday and appeared in a Tampa federal courtroom Friday for arraignment, where his attorney entered not guilty pleas to all charges, including conspiracy to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization, money laundering, and making a false statement on a passport application.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Natalie Hirt Adams postponed a bond hearing to Wednesday at the request of Yousef’s newly hired defense attorney, Mark O’Brien.
According to the indictment, prosecutors allege Yousef sent more than $46,000 over several years to co-conspirators and an unnamed French organization that authorities say supported Hamas. The scheme, prosecutors say, relied heavily on digital payment and crowdfunding tools to move funds and obscure their destination.
Court documents describe one alleged co-conspirator, identified only as “Co-Conspirator 2” and described as a Hamas member, who solicited donations through social media platforms including Instagram and Snapchat, and encrypted messaging apps such as Telegram and WhatsApp.
That individual allegedly directed prospective donors to contribute through PayPal, GoFundMe, other crowdfunding sites, and cryptocurrency platforms. Once collected, the indictment states, donations were converted into cryptocurrency and deposited into digital wallets controlled by the co-conspirator — a method prosecutors say helped mask the money’s ultimate use.
A second alleged co-conspirator, referred to as “Co-Conspirator 1,” is accused of advising Yousef on how to structure his donations and of founding the French organization named in the indictment in 2023.
Prosecutors allege the network used coded language in electronic communications to disguise references to Hamas, referring to the group as “green,” “bread,” or “the bread people.” In one exchange cited in the indictment, Yousef was reportedly warned to delete messages referencing the “bread thing.”
In another, from January 2024, he allegedly told an associate to describe recipients only as “needy people in Gaza” rather than reference the broader scheme, citing concerns that donors would be deterred if they understood the true purpose.
The indictment ties the alleged conspiracy’s origins to the weeks following Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on southern Israel, which killed more than 1,000 people.
Court records indicate Yousef, who was born in Kuwait and became a U.S. citizen in 1991, also holds a Jordanian passport under a different name. He remains in custody pending Wednesday’s bond hearing.
The case adds to a growing number of federal prosecutions examining how cryptocurrency and crowdfunding platforms have allegedly been used to route donations to designated terrorist organizations.
Source: Tampa Bay Times
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