Parents and relatives of women held in Kurdish camps were arrested by the National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor’s Office throughout France on Tuesday.
This is an unprecedented operation in terms of its scale and the variety of people involved. Some 29 men and women were arrested on Tuesday, September 29, across France, including six relatives or relatives of young women held in Kurdish camps, as part of an investigation into a vast system of cyber-financing of terrorism into Syria. This operation, conducted under the direction of the National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor’s Office (PNAT), led to 55 searches in 26 departments for remittances which, according to our information, mainly transited through the site for the sale and purchase of bitcoins online. Keplerk.
Several hundred thousand euros are said to have been transferred through this network. The device is said to have benefited members of Al-Qaida and the Islamic State (IS) group in Syria. This crackdown is part of a preliminary investigation opened on January 24 for “financing of terrorism and criminal terrorist association”, and follows the detection by Tracfin – the body of the Ministry of the Economy and finance, responsible for the fight against tax fraud and money laundering – “a sophisticated circuit of fund transfers to French jihadists” abroad, the PNAT said in a statement.