Hisham Chaudhary
Hisham Chaudhary is a British Muslim convicted of using Bitcoin to fund The Islamic State.
Chaudhary was arrested in November 2019 when electronic records showing that he had bought £50,000 worth of Bitcoin and discussed how to secretly transfer it. Trading records showed he had sent the Bitcoin to Syria to fund the extraction of captured Islamic State fighters and their smuggling into IS-controlled territory. When he was arrested, police found Islamic State recruiting videos on his computer. He had disseminated them online under the pseudonym "John Smith". They also found that Chaudhary had recorded one of these videos himself, containing a call to arm against non-believers all around the world, and spread it all over the Internet.
Chaudhary was charged with four counts of disseminating a terrorist publication, one count of membership of a terrorist group and two counts of funding terrorism. He defended himself in court by claiming he had sent the money to Syria for humanitarian purposes, but was eventually convicted on all counts. He was sentenced to 12 years in prison.