Crypto syndicate linked to terror outfits busted, 9 held

Ahmedabad: The Cyber Centre of Excellence (CCoE) busted an international cryptocurrency syndicate linked to international outfits, and arrested nine persons of whom seven are from Ahmedabad. Transactions involving Rs 226 crore have surfaced, officers said. The nine arrested include Mohsin Molani, Ejaz Pathan, Abdulkader Siddi, Naved Pathan, Faizahmed Chishti, Salmankhan Pathan and Gulam Ansari, all from Ahmedabad, while Zeeshan Motiwala is a Mumbai resident while Lovepreet Madharu is from Karnal. Gulam Ansari’s son Salman is in jail in the UK, officers said.CCoE officials stated that one of the key accused had links to a “front organization associated with the terror outfit, Hamas”. The probe, led by the CCoE of CID Crime, found that “cryptocurrency accounts operated through Binance were linked to 935 cyberfraud cases and were allegedly connected to global terror financing, narcotics trafficking and dark web operations”.According to investigators, the network was exposed after cyber experts tracked suspicious cryptocurrency wallets and transaction trails. The crypto wallet of Dubai-based Mohammed Zuber Popatiya — a wanted accused in the case — was reportedly frozen earlier this year by Israel’s National Bureau for Counter Terror Financing (NBCTF). An official statement from the CCoE said that Popatiya’s wallet “maintained direct transactional links with the Dubai Company for Exchange, a front utilized by the Hamas terror organization”.Interrogation of Ahmedabad-based accused Molani also exposed an alleged drug trafficking network operating in the UK since 2023. Molani was allegedly coordinating narcotics supply in the UK with Popatiya and another accused, Salman Ansari, who was sentenced to six years in prison by a UK court in Oct 2024. Despite being lodged in a UK prison, Ansari allegedly continued to operate the network, investigators claimed.According to CCoE, Ansari and Popatiya were the masterminds behind a complex terror-finance and Monero-based cryptocurrency routing structure. Officials alleged that illegal proceeds generated through cyberfraud, drug trafficking and dark web transactions were routed back to India through angadia and hawala channels. Molani allegedly collected the cash and passed it on to Ansari’s father, Gulam Ansari, who was among those arrested from Ahmedabad.The investigation further revealed that funds allegedly flowed into the syndicate’s wallets from entities blacklisted by the United States Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). “These included Yemen’s Houthi-linked Ansar Allah, Iran’s IRGC-QF, Russia-based sanctioned crypto exchange Garantex, and wallets associated with the Ilan Shor network,” an official release said.Investigators said the syndicate heavily relied on “privacy-focused cryptocurrencies such as Monero, which are difficult to trace and are often used in terror financing and dark web activities to evade law enforcement scrutiny”.According to CID Crime, the accused converted illicit cryptocurrency into stable USDT coins and routed the funds through international criminal channels. A case has been registered under Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, including provisions on criminal conspiracy and activities threatening national security, along with sections of the Information Technology Act, 2008.