Charities linked to Hezbollah, which have been sanctioned by the United States, have regularly directed donors to send funds via Lebanese digital payments providers that have partnerships with U.S. payment card companies, the Financial Times (FT) reported on Sunday.Several charities in the group’s network of social programs have asked donors to send money to digital wallets held by private individuals through financial company Whish Money, or to donate through its competitor OMT, the British newspaper added.The FT’s findings highlight how Hezbollah "appears to be exploiting weaknesses in the fight against terrorism financing and money laundering to raise funds", despite coming under intense global pressure since it suffered significant losses during last year's war with Israel.
It is a game of whack-a-mole. Even if sympathetic individuals are reluctant to help Hezbollah (or Hamas or any other terror group) by using their own phone numbers or digital wallets, these are terror groups - they can threaten ordinary people under their control to do the same thing. Which means there are unlimited ways for them to accept money.
I thought the more effective way would be to go after the charities themselves, to deplatform them. But the US OFAC already does that too. They cannot get foreign-hosted sites to be taken down but they can go after their social media. For example, the Shaheed.com.lb Lebanese Hezbollah site is still up, but every single social media link on that page doesn't work - they were all taken down.
So the US and to some extent European anti-terror agencies have made it more difficult for individuals to donate to terror groups. FT apparently didn't find the wallets or phone numbers online; they simply called the "charities" and asked how to donate. The terror fronts provided them with the donation numbers of private individuals.
What about the phone numbers themselves? Can spy agencies watch who is calling them?
Apparently, metadata showing that non-US residents are calling the numbers of the charities can also trigger watching those people for terror ties. For US residents, it is more difficult - a warrant would be needed because of privacy concerns. And there is a loophole - if a foreign person uses a US-based phone number, with VOIP or a burner phone, they would be assumed to be a US resident and it would be more difficult for US agencies to track them legally.
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One amusing thing I found while researching: a Lebanese Hezbollah front charity called the Wounded Foundation is still on Facebook for some reason. It put a notice up warning its donors that scammers are asking for money pretending to be the Wounded Foundation and not using the money for good jihadist purposes of helping Hezbollah members wounded by Israel.
Speaking of, one of the Hezbollah members blinded by the pager attack was blown up by an Israeli missile yesterday as he was being driven. Those are the sort of people supported by the "Wounded Foundation."
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