Supporters of Sweden’s largest neo-Nazi group donated crypto via centralized exchanges and mining pools, blockchain investigators say.
The Nordic Resistance Movement, the largest neo-Nazi group in Sweden which was sanctioned by the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) as a terrorist group, received over $90,000 worth of crypto through donations since 2015, according to a Chainalysis report.
The New York-headquartered blockchain forensic firm says the neo-Nazi group, established in 1997, is known for promoting white supremacist and anti-Semitic beliefs, adding that its activity led to its prohibition in Finland in 2020 for breaching national laws.
Chainalysis says the group publicly relied on crypto donations as it was unable to open traditional bank accounts due to sanctions. The group’s branches in multiple European countries, including Norway, Denmark, and Finland accepted donations in Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Litecoin (LTC), Tether (USDT), Cosmos (ATOM), Monero (XMR), and Cardano (ADA) among others.
As per Chainalysis’ data, addresses controlled by the Nordic Resistance Movement received at least “several thousand dollars’ worth of donations” from users at “mainstream exchanges” as well as from a “mining pool,” although specific platforms weren’t identified.
The revelations come amid heightened global scrutiny over the misuse of crypto, with the U.S. recently sanctioning entities within Russia’s fintech sector. In late March, OFAC sanctioned 13 entities and two individuals, who operated in Russia‘s fintech sector to offer services to evade U.S. sanctions.
The sanctions target companies servicing Russia’s “core financial infrastructure and curtail Russia’s use of the international financial system to further its war against Ukraine.” Under Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, Brian Nelson, highlighted that the objective is to hinder Russia’s capacity to seek alternative payment avenues as a means to evade sanctions.
