California man charged with fundraising for Hamas through sham charities

US federal authorities charged a California man on Wednesday with fundraising for Hamas through sham charities, illustrating how the terrorist group raises money abroad.

Reda Mazen Rida Sabassi, 38, was charged with terrorism, sanctions evasion, wire fraud, money laundering and making false statements.

Sabassi allegedly collected more than $600,000 in donations from thousands of donors for humanitarian aid for Gaza, but directed the money to Hamas and for personal expenses.

In 2022, Sabassi set up a nonprofit called Ikram — The Arab Charity Foundation, allowing him to collect tax-deductible donations with the stated aim of “providing emergency humanitarian relief to displaced families and refugees in Gaza.”

The nonprofit raised $638,000 in donations in 2023 and Sabassi was the only staffer, filings showed.

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Sabassi solicited donations through his nonprofit’s website and posted charity campaigns on crowdsourcing platforms, which circulated on Telegram and social media.

“Help 4 orphans who fled from Gaza start a new life,” one of the campaigns said, alongside a photo of a child. Another campaign, called “Gaza Relief,” said it would provide necessities like food and tents, and a third, “Gaza Relief Urgent Appeal,” vowed to secure a “brighter and warmer future” for Gazans.

A LinkedIn page matching Sabassi’s name, location, and the photo used for the charity campaigns said that he had a degree in software engineering from a university in Jordan and worked as a user interface developer.

Sabassi is a naturalized US citizen, the charges said. US Citizenship and Immigration Services did not respond to a request for details about how he had acquired citizenship.

While operating Ikram, behind the scenes, Sabassi spread pro-Hamas propaganda and coordinated financial transfers to Hamas, according to a criminal complaint filed in the federal Southern District of New York court. More than 100 donors to Sabassi’s campaigns appeared to reside in New York, the complaint said.

Sabassi collected Hamas videos from Telegram and put together an hour-long compilation of footage filmed by the terrorists during the October 7, 2023, invasion of southern Israel.

He released the footage on X accounts, including one that used an image of the late Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar as its profile picture. He posted some of the propaganda on the two-year anniversary of the Hamas attack.

Hamas is a US-designated terrorist group, so it is illegal to fund or coordinate with the group, but rhetorical support for terrorist groups is protected under US free speech laws.

Sabassi agreed to a voluntary interview with law enforcement in March 2024, telling investigators that he had created the Hamas propaganda video by collating clips from the footage released by the Al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas’s military wing.

He said that he believed Hamas “has a noble cause, which is to get their land back,” and that he had posted the videos to show that Hamas had attacked military targets and was not “beheading or raping babies,” investigators said. The majority of the 1,200 victims of the Hamas attack were civilians, including children.

Sabassi told law enforcement that he would not support the terrorist group with weapons or money because it was illegal. The complaint said that he had lied during the interview, leading to the false statements charge.

For the financial transfers, Sabassi worked with the Hamas fundraising organization Gaza Now, and unnamed co-conspirators based abroad, investigators said. The US and UK sanctioned Gaza Now for terror financing in 2024.

Ikram and Gaza Now shared each other’s fundraisers and coordinated online activities, the complaint alleged.

An FBI investigator said using the Gaza Now branding was a way of “signaling to Hamas supporters that it was an official campaign, i.e., directly related to Hamas,” but to outside observers, it would appear legitimate.

Some of the transfers involved banks in the UK and one of the co-conspirators was a Hamas member in Turkey, the complaint said.

One of the suspects told Sabassi that a contact in the UK had “good relations with the bank manager,” allowing access to a blocked account.

“She understands British laws,” the suspect said, adding that the contact had said to “never write that it is for Hamas and cause us trouble. Lol.”

In other messages, Sabassi joked about funding Hamas, saying one of their campaigns should have actually been titled, “Izz Al-Din Al-Qassam,” followed by a laughing emoji. His co-conspirator replied, “Lol. Oh dear. Into prison.”

Sabassi and the unnamed suspects discussed how to transfer money to Hamas, such as using a decentralized blockchain or transferring funds between cryptocurrency wallets to obscure the money’s sources. They also discussed using virtual private networks (VPNs) to disguise Sabassi’s location.

Sabassi sent $116,000 to a Hamas member based abroad and tried to convert another $380,000 in the funds into cryptocurrency so he could send it to Hamas through Gaza Now, the complaint said.

He also allegedly transferred tens of thousands of dollars to his personal bank account for expenses like rent and credit card bills, the complaint said.

Sabassi was arrested and held without bail because he was deemed a flight risk. He is being held in the federal San Diego Metropolitan Correctional Center, records showed.

Some of the charges carry a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.

The scheme appeared similar to the Holy Land Foundation, a group prosecuted in the US in the 2000s for soliciting charitable donations that were diverted to Hamas. The so-called Holy Land Five, who were imprisoned, remain popular figures in the anti-Zionist movement.

A search of Sabassi’s electronic devices showed that he had searched for information about the Holy Land Foundation online. Some of his other searches included, “Do crypto wallets track your IP address,” “Hamas crypto,” and “Nova music festival ticket purchases.”

Another case announced in a New York court last month, against an alleged Iranian operative, also illustrated how terror groups have used cryptocurrency and encrypted messaging apps like Telegram to facilitate terrorism in the US, Canada and Europe.