A Long Island woman has been indicted on money laundering charges after she allegedly funneled $85,000 through bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies to ISIS.
Fox News reported that Zoobia Shahnaz was charged by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in federal court on a number of charges, including bank fraud and three counts of money laundering.
The charges state that Shahnaz used 16 credit cards, obtained through fraud, to buy $63,000 in bitcoin and cryptocurrencies. Fox reported that she also obtained a $22,500 loan in June from a Manhattan bank. The money was then laundered to individuals in China and Pakistan, and also Turkey.
The charges state that Shahnaz had plans to join ISIS in Syria. In June, the woman quit her lab technician job and was able to get a Pakistani passport. She was detained at John F. Kennedy International Airport as she tried to leave to join ISIS.
In addition to the money laundering activities, said the site, she used the internet to access ISIS-related web content. Some of those sites, as charged by prosecutors, “urged lone-wolf attacks against American targets.”
If convicted, Shahnaz could face as many as 30 years in prison for bank fraud and 20 years for each of the money laundering counts.
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