Summary
- OFAC designated Zaid Issam Ahmed al-Jebouri, an Iraqi national based in Istanbul, and two associates as Specially Designated Global Terrorists for their role in a Hamas financial network operating through El-Kahira for General Trading.
- The designation includes seven TRON cryptocurrency addresses that have received approximately $38.6 million.
On July 23, 2026, the United States Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned Zaid Issam Ahmed al-Jebouri, an Iraqi national based in Istanbul, for his role in a Hamas financial network. Al-Jebouri and two named associates operate El-Kahira for General Trading, a Turkish over-the-counter (OTC) exchange office that Israel’s NBCTF listed in a January 2026 seizure order. OFAC has now extended the enforcement by naming individual operators and adding seven TRON cryptocurrency addresses as identifiers.
On-chain analysis reveals that the newly designated addresses show significant interaction with other addresses listed by NBCTF. Collectively, the seven designated wallets have received approximately $38.6 million in cryptocurrency.
Direct links to NBCTF-labeled wallets
As the Chainalysis Reactor graph below shows, Al-Jebouri’s wallet received funds from several El-Kahira-related wallets listed in NBCTF’s January 2026 seizure order, and it cashed out funds at Gaza-based money service business (MSB) OFAC SDN Buy Cash Money and Transfer Company and a UAE-based over-the-counter (OTC) desk. It also sent funds to mainstream exchange deposit addresses that dually received funds from a Palestine-based OTC and another Hamas-related wallet.
What this means for compliance teams
Today’s action illustrates the crucial importance of regional exchange offices in terror financing. Building and maintaining on-chain coverage of these small services is a challenge across both the public and private sectors, and requires significant investment and partnership.
Chainalysis has labeled the relevant cryptocurrency addresses associated with the designation in our product suite.
FAQs
Who did OFAC designate on July 23, 2026?
OFAC designated Zaid Issam Ahmed al-Jebouri, an Iraqi national based in Istanbul, along with Abdulla Issam Ahmad al-Jebouri and Khaldun Khamis Zakaria Alden. The al-Jebouris and Alden operate El-Kahira for General Trading, a Turkey-registered exchange office linked to Hamas financing.
How many cryptocurrency addresses were identified?
The designation includes seven TRON addresses that have collectively received approximately $38.6 million in cryptocurrency.
What makes this designation significant?
This designation shows the crucial importance of regional cryptocurrency exchange offices, often small, informal, and unlicensed, in the terror financing landscape. The prevalence of these OTC services, particularly in jurisdictions where compliance monitoring and enforcement are limited or nonexistent, presents significant challenges to identification and monitoring.
What are the compliance implications?
Compliance teams may hold critical insight to regional OTC exchangers. In partnership with public sector agencies and blockchain analytics firms, compliance teams play a key role in identifying the flow of terror funds.
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