May 8 (UPI) — A Virginia man has been sentenced spend more than 30 years in prison for a crypto scheme that poured thousands of dollars into the hands of ISIS.
The U.S. Department of Justice announced Thursday that Mohammed Azharuddin Chhipa of Springfield, Va., was convicted of one count of conspiracy to provide material support or resources to a designated foreign terrorist organization, and four counts of providing and attempting to provide material support or resources to a designated foreign terrorist organization.
He received a sentence Wednesday of 364 months behind bars for “his efforts to provide material support to the Islamic State of Iraq and [ISIS].”
Chhipa was found guilty of having sent money to female ISIS members located in Syria, which was partially used to support ISIS fighters and to help female ISIS members escape from prison camps.
Chhipa used social media to raise funds online, then both receive the money electronically or by hand, and then convert the cash into cryptocurrency and send it to Turkey, where it would be further smuggled to ISIS in Syria.
From approximately October of 2019 through October of 2022, Chhipa sent more than $185,000 to ISIS.
“This defendant directly financed ISIS in its efforts to commit vile terrorist atrocities against innocent citizens in America and abroad,” said Attorney General Pam Bondi in a press release Thursday. “This severe sentence illustrates that if you fund terrorism, we will prosecute you and put you behind bars for decades.”
U.S. Attorney Erik S. Siebert for the Eastern District of Virginia said that “Chhipa knowingly and persistently collected and provided a considerable amount of money to fund the violence of an organization bent on forcing their extremist ideology on others.”