Toronto man sentenced to 12 years for helping fund ISIS
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A Toronto man was sentenced to 12 years in prison for collecting money to help fund and promote terror group ISIS.
On Monday, 36-year-old Khalilullah Yousuf pleaded guilty to two of the three terrorism-related offences he was facing in Ontario Superior Court.
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The Public Prosecution Service of Canada said Yousuf admitted he created online fundraising campaigns and collected more than $35,000, and transferred funds — in cash and cryptocurrency — abroad to support the Islamic State.
In addition, Yousuf made and disseminated pro-Islamic State propaganda on social media to radicalize and recruit people to the terror group, and also conducted research and created propaganda to justify terrorist attacks on foreign nationals in Afghanistan.
The remaining charge, facilitating terrorist activity, was dropped as part of the guilty plea.
“At its core, terrorism is violence that seeks to justify itself,” George Dolhai, director of Public Prosecutions, said in a statement.
“But the violence needs support by advocates, recruiters, and financiers as essential parts of the cycle of intimidation and destruction. The verdicts and sentences today represent how Canadian society, in accordance with the rule of law, emphatically holds to account those who make the violence possible.”
Yousuf will be credited for time in custody and must serve half of the sentence before being released on full parole.
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In July 2023, the RCMP charged Yousuf following an investigation that began in March 2021 by the force’s Integrated National Security Enforcement Team (INSET).
The RCMP said the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada (FINTRAC), the Guardia Civil of Spain and the FBI helped assist the investigation.
In December 2022, the U.S. Department of Justice unsealed a criminal complaint in a Brooklyn, N.Y., court that charged Yousuf and three others — Mohammad David Hashimi, of Potomac Falls, Virginia; Abdullah At Taqi, of Queens, New York; and Seema Rahman, of Edison, New Jersey — with conspiring to provide material support to ISIS.
Yousuf was arrested on Dec. 14, 2022, following a request from the United States.
U.S. court documents alleged Yousuf and Hashimi were members of a group chat on an encrypted social media and mobile messaging service that helped them communicate between and among supporters of ISIS and other groups that adhered to similar violent jihadist ideologies.
In April 2021, members of the chat discussed posting donation links that appeared to be for humanitarian causes but were allegedly intended to help the “mujahideen,” or “holy warriors,” used by ISIS supporters to refer to ISIS fighters.
Yousuf allegedly provided a link to a specific Bitcoin address and another member of the chat posted a link to a PayPal campaign, both of which were controlled by an unnamed individual.
Between February 2021 and July 2022, the four accused allegedly raised and contributed more than $35,000 through a combination of cryptocurrency and other sources, according to court filings.
The defendants themselves allegedly contributed more than $24,000, with Yousuf contributing $20,347.89, Taqi contributing $2,769.35 and Rahman contributing $927.51.
In addition, it was alleged that Yousuf and Rahman created multiple GoFundMe fundraising campaigns pretending to collect money for charitable causes.
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