Mohammad David Hashimi, Conspiring to Provide Material Support to ISIS, Virginia 2021

A federal complaint was unsealed yesterday in federal court in Brooklyn charging Mohammad David Hashimi, 35, of Potomac Falls, Virginia with conspiring to provide material support to the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS).

Hashimi, along with three other defendants, Abdullah At Taqi, 23, of East Elmhurst, Queens, New York, Khalilullah Yousuf, 34, of Ontario, Canada, and Seema Rahman, 25, of Edison, New Jersey, were arrested on December 14 in Virginia, New York and New Jersey, respectively. Yousuf was also arrested on December 14 in Canada by Canadian law enforcement pursuant to a provisional arrest request from the United States.

Taqi and Rahman made their initial appearances in federal court in Brooklyn before Chief U.S. Magistrate Judge Cheryl L. Pollak. Hashimi made his initial appearance in federal court in Alexandria, Virginia, before U.S. Magistrate Judge Ivan Davis and was ordered detained pending trial.

According to court documents, Hashimi and Yousuf were members of a group chat on an encrypted social media and mobile messaging electronic communication service that facilitated communication between and among supporters of ISIS and other groups that adhered to similar violent jihadist ideologies.

In early April 2021, members of the group chat discussed posting donation links that purported to be for humanitarian causes but that were in fact intended to help the “mujahideen,” an Arabic term that translates to “holy warriors” that is used by ISIS supporters to refer to ISIS fighters. Yousuf provided a link to a specific Bitcoin address and another member of the group chat posted a link to a PayPal campaign, both of which were controlled by an individual identified in the Complaint as Facilitator-1.

“These defendants promoted the violent extremism of ISIS by pretending to raise money for humanitarian causes only to transfer the funds to cryptocurrency accounts tied to the group,” said Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen of the National Security Division. “These arrests show the National Security Division’s unwavering commitment to bringing to justice all those who would help terrorist organizations threaten harm to our people.”

Hashimi, 35, of Potomac Falls, Virginia, is charged with one count of conspiring to provide material support to the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS). If convicted, he faces up to 20 years in prison.

Source: https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/pr/four-defendants-charged-conspiring-provide-material-support-isis