Food Prices Continue To Rise In Iran With No Hope In Sight

Quicker and cheaper than its larger rival Bitcoin, Tron has overtaken its rival as a platform for crypto transfers associated with groups designated as terror organizations by Israel, the United States and other countries, according to interviews with seven financial crime experts and blockchain investigations specialists.

A Reuters' analysis of crypto seizures announced by Israeli security services since 2021 reflects the trend, showing for the first time a sharp rise in the targeting of Tron wallets and a fall in Bitcoin wallet seizures.

"Earlier it was Bitcoin and now our data shows that these terrorist organizations tend to increasingly favor Tron," said Mriganka Pattnaik, CEO of New York-based blockchain analysis firm Merkle Science, citing Tron's faster transaction times, low fees, and stability.

Merkle Science says it counts law enforcement agencies in the United States, Britain and Singapore as clients.

Israel's National Bureau for Counter Terror Financing (NBCTF), which is responsible for such seizures, froze 143 Tron wallets between July 2021 and October 2023 that it believed were connected to a "designated terrorist organization" or used for a "severe terror crime," the Reuters analysis found.

The Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas on Israel killed around 1,200 people. Israel's subsequent bombardment and ground invasion of Gaza has killed thousands of people. In its response, Israel has also stepped-up scrutiny of Hamas' financing.

Contacted by Reuters with a summary of this article, Hayward Wong, a spokesperson for British Virgin Islands-registered Tron said all technologies could "in theory be used for questionable activities," citing as an example US dollars being used for money laundering.

Wong said Tron did not have control over those using its technology and that it was not linked to the groups identified by Israel.

Almost two-thirds of Israel's Tron seizures – 87 - were this year, including 39 wallets that Israel said in June were owned by Lebanon's Hezbollah, and 26 it said in July belonged to Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a Hamas ally that joined the assault on Israel from Gaza.

The seizures have also included 56 Tron wallets NBCTF said were linked to Hamas, including 46 in March last year it connected to a single Gaza-based money exchange company called Dubai Co. For Exchange.

Weeks after the Hamas assault, Israel announced its biggest known seizure of crypto accounts yet, freezing around 600 accounts it connected to Dubai Co., without stating which crypto networks or coins were used.

More than a dozen people whose funds were frozen in that seizure told Reuters they had been using Tron. They said they traded crypto to help their business or personal finances and denied any connection with Hamas or Islamic Jihad.

One of the people, who identified themselves only as Neo, said it was possible they had transferred money on one occasion to somebody associated with Hamas.

Israel calls Dubai Co. a terrorist group "due to the aid that they provide to the Hamas terrorist organization, particularly its military arm, in transferring funds on a scale of tens of millions of dollars a year."

A representative for Dubai Co., whose email was listed on the seizure order, did not respond to a request for comment.

The armed wing of Hamas, which had raised crypto funds since at least 2019, said in April it would cease Bitcoin fundraising, citing increased efforts to prevent donations. Hamas did not mention Tron in the statement.

Reuters could not independently determine whether Hamas had used Tron. NBCTF declined to comment for this story, including about its understanding of the shift to Tron and how it linked the wallets to the militant groups. Hamas, Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad did not respond to requests for comment.

Six people listed on Israel's previous Tron seizure notices who responded to Reuters questions denied connections to militant groups. They included people based in Venezuela, Dubai and the West Bank city of Jenin.

'AXIS OF RESISTANCE'

In the June statement, Israel said it seized funds "intended for use by the terrorist organizations financed by Iran." Iran counts Hamas, Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad in a so-called Axis of Resistance opposing Israeli and American power in the Middle East.

In the seizure statements, NBCTF did not affirm Tehran was the source of the funding. Iran's foreign ministry did not respond to a Reuters request for comment about using Tron to fund groups it supports.

Iran has previously used Tron to skirt US sanctions. Reuters reported last year that Iranian firms used it for $8 billion in transactions between 2018 and 2022.

Estimates of the sums of money that reach proscribed groups through crypto are unreliable because it is hard to say whether money sent to seized wallets was really destined for those groups.

The value of crypto transactions and the digital wallet addresses used for them can be traced on the blockchain - a public ledger that underpins crypto. However, it is hard for those outside law enforcement or crypto trading platforms to know the real identity of those involved in the transactions.

The people Reuters consulted additionally said their research showed the cryptocurrency Tether was dominant across the Tron network.

Tether, the world's biggest so-called stablecoin, is backed by reserves and aims to keep a 1:1 peg with the dollar. The company said in a statement that it regularly traced and froze tokens "used for nefarious purposes," and coordinated these efforts with law enforcement.

Tether is the third-largest crypto token, with a market value of $89 billion, up by around a third in the past year, according to CoinGecko data.

Despite its lack of name recognition outside crypto circles, Tron is the dominant blockchain for Tether transactions, currently hosting $48 billion of the tokens, according to Tether's website. Average daily transactions on Tron hit 9.1 million from April-June, according to data firm Messari, up over 70% from the same period last year.

Justin Sun, who founded Tron in 2017, was sued by the US Securities and Exchange Commission in March for allegedly artificially inflating trading volumes and selling Tron tokens as an unregistered security. Sun said the SEC charges "lack merit."

Binbin Deng, a representative of Sun, referred Reuters to Tron spokesperson Wong's statement.

'BLINDSPOT'

Since its 2008 birth, the Bitcoin blockchain, and since then crypto more widely, have been magnets for criminals drawn by liquidity and a reputation for anonymity. Of all crypto transaction volumes, the illicit share was 0.2% in 2022, down from 2% three years earlier, according to blockchain tracker Chainalysis.

In Israel, Bitcoin seizures have been scarce by comparison with Tron. In 2021, the first year NBCTF published seizure notices, it froze 30 Bitcoin wallets. No Bitcoin wallets appear in notices in the subsequent years.

The Financial Action Task Force, a Paris-based G7 body that fights illicit finance, warned last month that terrorist organisations were seeking to further boost donor anonymity, citing the growing popularity of Tether transfers on Tron.

Four of the people consulted by Reuters said law enforcement's increased capability to trace transactions on Bitcoin was driving such groups to Tron.

Tron initially drew less attention from blockchain analysis firms, said Shlomit Wagman, a senior fellow at Harvard University who was director-general of the Israel Money Laundering and Terrorism Financing Prohibition Authority from 2016 to 2022.

"There was until now this blindspot," she said.

Transaction fees on Tron cost far less than on Bitcoin, U.S. investment firm VanEck says. Militant groups were also using stablecoins on Tron instead of more volatile bitcoin tokens to ensure the "value of their crypto is being preserved," Wagman said.

(Report by Reuters)

The ceasefire, initiated on Friday, has resulted in the release of dozens of hostages, with over 100 Palestinian prisoners held on terror charges freed by Israel as part of the agreement.

Hamas is pushing for an extended truce, to give the group time to regroup amidst the devastation inflicted by Israel's relentless retaliation for its massacre of October 7. The designated terror group killed 1,200 mostly civilians and took 240 or more hostage in Gaza.

However, in spite of the fact that over 14,000 Gazans have been killed, including top Hamas commanders, and half of the strip now turned to rubble, Ali Fadavi, the deputy commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), asserted on Monday that the Israeli military's perceived invincibility has diminished.

"The invincible image that Israelis had portrayed for military dominance collapsed," he said. "Several hundred individuals breached its seemingly impregnable walls, penetrating tens of kilometers into occupied Palestine."

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, addressing his forces in Gaza, conveyed a resolute stance on Sunday, stating that once hostages are released, "Nothing will stop us." He said while the hostage release continues, he would agree to one additional day for every 10 captives released but vowed to continue the war until Hamas is eradicated from the strip.

While Iran takes credit for supporting Hamas financially and militarily over the past two decades, it has refrained from direct military involvement in the current conflict. Instead, its proxies have taken the front line. Even amidst the ceasefire, Lebanese Hezbollah has continued its aggression on Israel's northern border and Yemen's Houthis have taken further actions on vessels in the Red Sea.

The prisoner, a SUnni Kurd, is the latest case rights groups fear will be victim to Iranian crackdowns on dissenting voices among the country's minorities.

According to Hengaw Organization for Human Rights, one week ago, the Kurdish religious prisoner, the father of two children, was taken to the solitary confinement wing.

It follows the execution on November 5 of fellow religious prisoner Ghasem Abesteh, one of Karimi's co-defendants.

Hengaw said that along with Karimi, five more religious prisoners have been identified as also facing imminent execution, Davoud Abdollahi, Farhad Salimi, Anwar Khezri, Khosrow Besharat, and Kamran Sheykha.

All of them were taken into custody in 2009 and were transferred to the detention center of the intelligence agency in Urmia (Orumiyeh) City.

They were tried in 2015, and subsequently sentenced to death. These sentences were confirmed by the Supreme Court in 2020, after years of legal battles. Despite a request for retrial in September 2020, the Supreme Court rejected their plea.

The charges against them include "War against God," "corruption on earth," "support for Salafi groups," and the alleged "murder" of Abdolrahim Tina, who was killed by unidentified assailants in September 2008. However, in letters published by human rights organizations in recent years, the accused individuals consistently denied any involvement in these accusations.

In July alone, Kurdistan Human Rights Network reported that in the past month, Iranian security forces detained at least 54 Kurdish activists and citizens in the western provinces of Iran. Two detainees were sent to prison while the fate of the rest, including two children, remains unknown.

The US military announced that the Carrier Strike Group Eisenhower (IKECSG) completed a transit of the Strait of Hormuz to enter the waters of the Persian Gulf to support US Central Command missions.

Following the October 7 terror attack on Israel by Hamas and the start of the Gaza war, the US first deployed two strike groups to eastern Mediterranean in what appeared as a deterrence against the Lebanese Hezbollah. The Shiite militant group is believed to possess tens of thousands of missiles and rockets that could bring destruction to Israel. The Hezbollah has since engaged in limited border skirmishes but has avoided a full-scale war with Israel.

Iran’s regime has also chosen not to directly get involved in the Gaza war, although officials issue daily statements of support for Hamas.

The US said that the IKECSG are patrolling the Persian to ensure freedom of navigation in key international waterways while supporting CENTCOM requirements throughout the region.

Iranian officials periodically threaten to close off the Strait of Hormuz or inspect vessels. They have attacked and harassed dozens of commercial vessels in the region since 2019.

“The aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower was accompanied by the guided-missile cruiser USS Philippine Sea, guided-missile destroyers USS Gravely and the USS Stethem and the French frigate Languedo,” the USCENTCOM said.

In an open letter addressed to Chief Justice Gholamreza Mohseni-Ejei Thursday, Ahmadreza Haeri has offered more details about the mock execution of a former fellow inmate Yasin, at Ward 240 of Tehran’s Evin Prison.

Yasin whose death sentence was overturned by the Supreme Court in December, in audio files smuggled from prison, has described severe torture including a mock execution during which he was forced to stand on a chair with a noose around his neck after being told to write his last will and testament.

“He is young. One must show mercy. Try to place the noose sideways so that his neck breaks right away when he drops so he doesn’t suffer too much,” Yasin says one of his supposed executioners said to the other.

Then, he says, there was a call after which he was told the execution had been delayed giving him “another chance to cooperate”. Two days later, a real death sentence was handed to him. His wife miscarried her eight-month baby after finding out about the death sentence.

Yasin (27) belongs to the persecuted Kurdish Yarsan religious community and was a vocal critic of the regime before his arrest for supporting the anti-government protests known as the Woman, Life, Freedom movement. He has only attended the court once during his fourteen months of imprisonment and does not have access to his lawyer.

“Form a fact-finding committee consisting of independent lawyers and judges to investigate this matter and allow independent journalists and reports to monitor the committee’s performance,” Haeri wrote.

Haeri alleges that Yasin was taken from his cell in the middle of night and subjected to a mock execution to force him to accept fabricated charges including the use of a combat weapon during last year’s anti-government protests, which would justify a death sentence sought by the prosecutor against him.

According to Haeri, tens of other prisoners heard Yasin’s account of the torture and mock execution he had undergone when he was taken back to the general ward, mentally and physically shattered.

Haeri, a lawyer and human rights activist, is serving a sentence at Ghezel Hesar Prison for exposing the beating of other prisoners at Tehran’s infamous Fashafouyeh Prison in 2014, which led to the death of two inmates, during an incident which came to be known as “Black Thursday”.

State-affiliated media such as the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) linked Tasnim news agency claimed Wednesday that a new case has been opened against Haeri for not being able to provide proof for the claim in his letter earlier this week that Yasin was subjected to mock execution.

Many other political prisoners and prisoners of conscience have claimed that they were subjected to mock executions to extract confessions that would justify harsh sentences including Sahand Noor-Mohammad-Zadeh, 26, an anti-government protester.

He was accused of setting a trash bin on fire and blocking traffic, both of which he denied. But he had several times been blindfolded and told to climb a chair to be hanged before his trial. He was sentenced to death for moharebeh (enmity against God) and was executed on November 2 last year.

Another protester, Majid Kazemi, said he had undergone mock executions at least fifteen times, in addition to other tortures including upside down suspension and showing him a video of his brother being tortured to “confess” to whatever was dictated to him. Kazemi was also executed on May 19 for “enmity against God”.

In a statement on November 23, the US State Department condemned mock executions and torture of prisoners in Iran with the hashtag #SamanYasin and called on the Iranian authorities to immediately stop “these inhumane practices and conduct fair and transparent trials for their citizens.”