Israel announces seizure of $1.5 million from crypto wallets tied to Iran | TechCrunch

Israel’s Defense Ministry announced on Monday that the ministry ordered the seizure of 187 crypto wallets, allegedly belonging to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps or IRGC.

exist Documents detailing epilepsy seizuresThe Ministry’s National Counter-Terrorism Financing Agency (NBCTF) said it was “strongly convinced that cryptocurrency wallets” were the property of the IRGC and was “used to commit serious terrorist crimes.”

The IRGC is approved as a terrorist organization by other countries such as the United States, the European Union and Israel.

The named wallet received $1.5 billion over time, according to blockchain monitoring company Elliptic. Elliptic co-founder and chief scientist Tom Robinson said the company could not confirm whether the wallets actually belong to the IRGC. Robinson also said the wallets currently hold only $1.5 million, a small portion of the funds until today.

The Israeli Ministry of Defense did not respond to a request for comment from TechCrunch, asking questions about how to determine the 187 wallets are related to IRGC.

exist Blog Posts“Certain addresses can be controlled by cryptocurrency services and may be part of the wallet infrastructure used to facilitate transactions for many customers,” the elliptical said.

Amir Rashidi, Director of Digital Rights and Security for Iran-centered Nonprofits Miaan GroupIt is said that it is possible that Israel will find information about these wallets by hacking into Iran’s infrastructure. “There are always rumors that the IRGC is using cryptocurrencies to circumvent sanctions,” Rashidi added.

“For example, many of these cases may involve communications that do not directly belong to the IRGC but are related to it, similar to many banks, financial and credit institutions, and even companies that appear to be private,” he said.

This is not the first time Israel, or at least an unanimous group of Israel targets the Iranian government’s cryptocurrency hiding.

On June 18, a hacker group suspected of ties to the Israeli government called the Predatory Sparrow during the twelve-day war between Israel and Iran Hacker Iran’s Large Crypto Exchange nobitex. The hackers stole the cryptocurrency worth about $90 and sent it to an inaccessible wallet, thus “burning”, effectively destroying digital funds.

Encryption intelligence companies like Oval and TRM Laboratory IRGC has previously said that Nobitex is used.