All news

Russia blocks 450 digital wallets raising funds for terrorists

Russia pays increasing attention to countering the financing of terrorism and extremism via the Internet

SOCHI, November 11. /TASS/. Russia has blocked 450 digital wallets raising funds for terrorists in Syria and Iraq, said Head of the Russian Prosecutor-General’s Office Department for supervision over the implementation of laws on federal security, international relations, countering extremism and terrorism Yury Khokhlov. He was speaking at the 7th regional conference of the International Association of Prosecutors of Central and Eastern European and Central Asian countries dedicated to combating terrorism and violent extremism that opened on Tuesday in the Black Sea resort of Sochi.

He noted that Russia "paid increasing attention to countering the financing of terrorism and extremism via the Internet." "With the development of telecommunication technologies in the field of financial payments, extremist websites and communities in social networks began posting digital wallet data for the goals and needs of terrorists and bank card data," Khokhlov said.

"To date, at the request of the Prosecutor-General’s Office, about 450 resources through which funds were raised for terrorist groups in Syria and Iraq have been blocked," he said.

FSB Director Yevgeny Sysoev earlier said that about 3,000 persons suspected of raising funds for terrorist groups had been identified in Russia, adding that they had been identified in more than half of Russia’s regions.