A large network dismantled.
Twenty-nine people were taken into custody on Tuesday in a crackdown targeting a terrorist cyber-financing system that allegedly benefited members of Al Qaeda and ISIS in Syria, the prosecution said. national anti-terrorism.
This operation led to "55 searches in 26 different departments and the placement in police custody of 29 people, aged 22 to 66, most of whom are suspected of having injected funds into the network for the benefit of relatives. finding in Syria, and for two of them, to have played the role of kingpins ”, explains the Pnat in a press release.
This crackdown "comes within the framework of a preliminary investigation opened on January 24, 2020 for financing of terrorism and criminal terrorist association, following the detection by Tracfin of a sophisticated circuit of transfers of funds to jihadists French people still present in Syria, ”he explains.
"Two French jihadists" at the origin of this network
According to the Pnat, this network has been “active since 2019 and is based mainly on the purchase, in France, of cryptocurrency coupons whose references have been transmitted by secure messaging to jihadists present in Syria, then credited on platforms of bitcoins ”.
The investigators were able to identify "two French jihadists" at the origin of this network, "Mesut S. and de Walid F., both aged 25".
“Having joined Syria together in 2013, they are suspected of being members of the Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS) terrorist group affiliated with Al-Qaeda and are subject to an arrest warrant following a first sentence of 10 years of imprisonment, pronounced on April 10, 2016, in their absence, by the criminal court of Paris ”, details the Pnat.
"The judicial authorities know full well that, without this material aid, the children
(Editor's note: being in the camps in Syria)
are exposed directly to a risk of death", responded Me Marie Dosé, lawyer for several people in custody .
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"We are in the process of refusing to repatriate these children and prohibiting families from providing them with a minimum of assistance", she added, stressing that these families had "no choice but to send otherwise money ”to their loved ones.
