Germany Terrorism Financing: Methods, Legal Hurdles and Crypto

Name: Searching for clues: Donations for terrorism? | DW Documentary
Uploaded: 2026-03-26T17:33:08.396675+00:00
Duration: 40 min 56 s
Channel: DW Documentary
Description: Summary and key takeaways on Germany Terrorism Financing: Methods, Legal Hurdles and Crypto, covering to Terrorism Attacks in Germany Germany has experienced

DW Documentary

Mar 26, 2026

•

40 min video

•

5 min read

YouTube video ID: 5k75f-Spahs

Source: YouTube video by DW Documentary — Watch original video

PDF

Germany has experienced nine attacks in the past twelve months, averaging one every six weeks. Officials stress that the most effective way to damage terrorist organizations is to target their money supply.

The Challenge of Prosecuting Terrorism Financiers

Authorities launched raids with more than 200 officers hoping for a breakthrough against Islamist terror networks. Arrests underscore the continued high threat from Islamist groups, especially regarding financing and preparations. Yet bringing backers of terrorism to justice in Germany remains difficult, and the legal system is described as “making it as complicated as possible to get convictions.”

Personal Account of Life with ISIS and Funding Methods

“Chloe,” a woman who lived in Syria with her ISIS fighter husband, explains how easy it is for ISIS to obtain funding. She spent five years with ISIS in a war zone, noting that her husband’s radicalization began after marriage and exposure to news reports about ISIS. The couple used personal savings to travel to Syria, while others took out loans, ordered items online without paying, or secured a €50,000 loan. Many German supporters flew to Turkey and were smuggled into Syria. Some exploited Germany’s welfare system by not deregistering and continuing to withdraw benefits, with cash withdrawn at ATMs in Turkey.

Mechanisms of Terrorism Financing

Advisor Hans Jakob Schindler warns that even small amounts can signal terrorist financing. Micro‑donation financing, now called crowdfunding, is a common method; “Micro donation financing is actually a very old method. Today we call it crowdfunding.” No significant Islamist terrorist organization avoids using donations and crowdfunding. Funding channels include cryptocurrency, traditional money‑transfer services, and the exploitation of humanitarian causes. Terrorist groups extort humanitarian organizations in crisis regions.

Money is often wired from Germany to Turkey and then to Syria. Defendants argue that text messages do not prove the money reached the camp, challenging probable cause. ISIS paid “living expenses” of about $100 per month for two people, and fundraising frequently occurred via social media, especially Telegram. Western Union is exploited because it allows transfers without a bank account, and cash couriers rely on large networks of trusted individuals. The informal Hala system—an old Arab banking method—transfers money through trusted depositors in Germany and payees in crisis regions, often operating illegally and leaving no records. Authorities struggle to trace Hala funds because operators destroy evidence.

Women play a crucial role in fundraising, recruitment, communications setup, and obtaining SIM cards. Social media platforms are not required to monitor content proactively unless there is an immediate threat to life, and the EU’s Digital Services Act does not impose a general monitoring obligation. Experts argue that legal frameworks need updating to require platforms to cooperate like financial institutions.

Legal Proceedings and Court Cases

A July 2023 trial charged defendants with forming a terrorist organization, planning attacks, and providing financial support. The indictment spanned more than 300 pages, and defendants faced up to ten years in prison. In one case the charge of forming a terrorist organization was dropped, but conviction remains possible if prosecutors prove money was sent to ISIS. German criminal code §129A (5) stipulates six months to ten years imprisonment for supporting a prescribed organization. Guilt depends on the court being convinced the money reached ISIS.

The German Justice Ministry proposed a draft law in July 2025 to make even an attempt to send money a crime, extending paragraph 89C to cover raising funds for terrorism and focusing on the concrete purpose of the funds. Terrorism financiers are described as “very safe” in Germany unless they are extremely specific about criminal intent. Only three of seven defendants were found guilty of providing financial support in Düsseldorf, and Side S received a four‑year sentence for membership in a foreign terrorist organization and violating foreign trade laws. Money‑laundering linked to crowdfunding nearly doubled from €1.3 million (2020) to over €2.1 million (2024), excluding micro‑donations unconnected to money laundering.

The Role of Cryptocurrency in Terrorism Financing

Cryptocurrency transactions are growing in importance for terrorist fundraising because they enable borderless, instantaneous, low‑cost transfers. Regular crypto accounts or wallets can be traced relatively easily, providing real‑time intelligence that investigators can analyze within minutes, faster than traditional bank subpoena requests. However, terrorists are increasingly turning to privacy coins such as Zcash and Monero, whose encrypted blockchains make payments invisible and significantly harder for investigators to prove money transfers.

Evolving Legal Frameworks and Proposed Changes

Legal reforms aim to require social‑media platforms to cooperate with investigators similarly to financial institutions. German investigators want platforms to filter content for potential terrorism financing. The July 2025 draft law would criminalize attempts to send money to terrorist organizations by extending paragraph 89C and emphasizing the concrete purpose of the funds.

Case Study: Mustafa Aesh and Hamas Funding

Mustafa Aesh, an Austrian national, is suspected of glorifying terrorism and collecting donations for Hamas via his Telegram channel “Gaza Now.” He was arrested in March 2024 on suspicion of funding terrorism, added to UK and US sanctions lists, and later placed on an international wanted list in August 2025. Authorities allege he collected $4.5 million, directing donors to crypto wallets through QR codes, despite sanctions. A neighbor believed Aesh was in Turkey. Aesh denied promoting military groups or collecting funds for Hamas. He was arrested at Amsterdam airport in September 2025 and extradited to Austria. The “No Money for Terror” event highlighted how Gaza Now funds were funneled to Hamas.

Conclusion and Future Outlook

Funding for Islamist groups continues from Germany through both covert and less covert channels, posing a persistent threat to Europe. There will always be people sending money out of sympathy or pity, which opens doors for radical support networks. Governments must constantly evolve in the “arms race” against terrorism financing, as the current situation is estimated to be about twenty years behind emerging tactics.

Takeaways

Terrorist groups in Germany have carried out nine attacks in a year, and authorities see cutting off their money supply as the primary way to damage these organizations.
Prosecuting financiers is hampered by Germany’s complex legal framework, with convictions rare despite large raids involving over 200 officers and lengthy indictments.
Funding methods range from small micro‑donations and crowdfunding to traditional money‑transfer services like Western Union and informal Hala networks, often exploiting welfare benefits and cash couriers.
Cryptocurrency, especially privacy coins such as Zcash and Monero, is increasingly used for borderless, low‑cost transfers, making detection harder even though regular crypto transactions can be traced quickly.
Proposed legal reforms aim to criminalize attempts to send money to terrorist groups by extending paragraph 89C, but experts warn the fight will remain an “arms race” with new tactics constantly emerging.

Frequently Asked Questions

How are privacy coins like Zcash and Monero used in terrorism financing?

Privacy coins such as Zcash and Monero encrypt transaction data, making payments invisible on the blockchain. Terrorist groups adopt them to move funds across borders without leaving a trace, which hampers investigators' ability to link transfers to illicit activities.

What is the Hala system and why is it difficult for authorities to trace?

Hala is an informal money‑transfer network that moves funds without banks by using trusted depositors in Germany and payees in crisis regions. Operators often lack official authorization, destroy records, and operate illegally, leaving investigators with little evidence to follow the money trail.

Who is DW Documentary on YouTube?

DW Documentary is a YouTube channel that publishes videos on a range of topics. Browse more summaries from this channel below.

Does this page include the full transcript of the video?

Yes, the full transcript for this video is available on this page. Click 'Show transcript' in the sidebar to read it.

Helpful resources related to this video

If you want to practice or explore the concepts discussed in the video, these commonly used tools may help.

Privacy Coins Zcash Monero Recommended

These are privacy-focused cryptocurrencies mentioned as being used by terrorists to make transactions invisible and difficult for investigators to trace.

Amazon →

Cryptocurrency Wallet Hardware

The video discusses how terrorists use cryptocurrency wallets and QR codes to direct donors, implying a need for secure ways to manage digital assets.

Amazon →

Book Terrorism Financing Methods

The video delves into the complex mechanisms and evolving tactics of terrorism financing, including traditional channels, crowdfunding, and cryptocurrencies, suggesting a need for deeper knowledge on the subject.

Amazon →

Book On Cryptocurrency And Crime

The video highlights the increasing role of cryptocurrencies, including privacy coins, in terrorism financing and the challenges it presents to investigators.

Amazon →

Links may be affiliate links. We only include resources that are genuinely relevant to the topic.

Summarize another video

Full Transcript YouTube

[music]
Nine attacks in 12 months.
Germany has had a terrorist attack every
6 weeks.
Fundamentally,
where you want to try and inflict
[music]
damage on terrorist organizations, it
has to be at the money supply.
Bankers,
>> bank transfers, hala, crypto, mobile
banking. If it can be used to transfer
money, it is.
Islam.
The authorities hoped they'd made a
major breakthrough against Islamist
terror networks. The raids involved over
200 officers from Germany's national and
regional security agencies.
The suspects were then transported to
Carl's Rua for questioning by federal
prosecutors.
Today's arrests show that the threat
from Islamist terror remains very high.
Our focus continues to be on
preparations for a terrorist attack, but
above all financing as well. Our goal
was to drain funding for terrorist
organizations early on. I'm very pleased
by today's arrests.
>> [music]
>> But the case would above all illustrate
one thing. How difficult [music] it is
to bring backers of terrorism to justice
in Germany and especially when it comes
to financing. A point highlighted by
then interior minister Nancy Fesa.
>> Germany makes it as complicated as
possible to get convictions.
land.
>> This woman used to live in Syria
together with her husband, a fighter
with the Islamic State or ISIS. She
asked to remain anonymous and to be
called Chloe, which is not her real
name. She saw firsthand how easy it is
for ISIS and other terrorist
organizations to get funding and what
that money is used for.
They'll always find options.
Completely preventing is impossible.
>> In Germany, that is.
>> She says she spent 5 years with ISIS in
Syria.
>> You knew what was going on and that you
were heading into a war zone. Anyone who
claims differently is lying.
Chloe says she had a difficult childhood
and was put in a care home at the age of
15. She later converted to Islam.
She then met her future husband, a
Muslim.
Everything was fine at first, she says,
but his radicalization started shortly
after they got married.
>> It was a month or two after the wedding.
We were at a friend's place. The men
were sitting together in a room watching
Arab language TV.
There was a news report about the armed
struggle of ISIS in Syria.
My friend's ex-husband kind of gave him
therapy.
He said, "We have to go and help." And
not just humanitarian help, but fighting
too.
And that was when he started making
travel plans.
Plans that involved Khloe and her
husband going to Syria. He wanted to
join ISIS, the radical Islamist [music]
group that had evolved from al Qaeda in
Iraq. In 2013, ISIS capitalized on the
chaos of the civil war in neighboring
Syria to expand its operations and
territory.
[music]
According to Chloe, she and her husband
used their savings to pay for the
journey to Syria and to get situated
with IS. She says others got funding
from other sources.
Some people took out loans or ordered
stuff online, didn't pay, and then sold
it. One guy used to work in a bank. He
had a full-time job and a good credit
rating. And he managed to somehow get
another 50,000 loan and then took off
with that.
Like many ISIS supporters from Germany,
Khloe and her husband first got a flight
to Turkey.
Smugglers, she says, then helped them
cross the border into Syria,
a route commonly used by ISIS
supporters, some of whom used funds from
Germany's welfare system.
First, they'd empty their accounts. And
if they were receiving benefits, they
simply didn't dregister.
If they were receiving benefits, they
wouldn't go to the welfare office and
say, "I'm going to join ISIS in Syria,
so please stop my payments."
They take their bank cards with them and
withdraw cash at the first ATM, which
was usually in Turkey.
Hans Jakob Schindler advises governments
and fintech companies on detecting
funding for terrorism, even smaller
amounts like at this workshop in Berlin.
And it's precisely the less conspicuous
sums that can add up to a crucial source
of funding.
Micro donation financing is actually a
very old method.
Today we call it crowdfunding.
A lot of people donate small amounts to
support some cause.
There is no significant Islamist
terrorist organization that does not use
donations and crowdfunding to finance
its operations.
They use cryptocurrency as well as
traditional channels.
They take advantage of supposed
humanitarian causes to raise funds and
even extort humanitarian organizations
in crisis regions. They all do.
18 months after the raids and arrests in
Germany,
it's day 37 of the trial against the men
who'd been taken to federal prosecutors
in July 2023.
the charges forming a terrorist
organization and planning attacks,
plus providing financial support for a
terrorist organization after allegedly
collecting sizable amounts of money for
ISIS members.
One of the defendants is represented by
courtappointed lawyers Seren Alen and
Martin Heising who have a [music]
history of defending radical Islamists.
Um, according to the indictment, the
money was wired from Germany to Turkey
and from there to Syria or elsewhere.
We're challenging the claim that the
money actually arrived in the camp.
It's claimed that the money did get
there based on text messages saying so.
But whether that's enough to establish
the probable cause required for
conviction, we disagree.
>> This is a major trial. The indictment
alone stretches across more than 300
pages. It followed months of police
investigations
also into the man represented by the two
attorneys who is known only as Sed S due
to German reporting restrictions.
At this stage of the trial, the
defendants faced a sentence of up to 10
years in jail.
Not so long ago, various parts of Syria
were left devastated by ISIS's campaign
of terror, and it remains a politically
fractured and unstable country.
While ISIS was ostensibly defeated in
2019, experts say [music] its
underground networks remain all too
active and warned that history may
repeat itself.
Beginning in 2013, ISIS overran large
parts of northern Syria and vast areas
of Iraq and in 2014 declared its own
state a new caliphate.
The group committed a range of mass
murders, in some cases, executing
hostages on camera. The German
authorities estimate that around 1,150
individuals from the country's
pro-Islamist movement traveled to Syria
or Iraq. It was at this point that Khloe
and her husband arrived in Syria.
He was summoned the next morning to the
training camp. He was gone for 2 months
and I was left alone living in the home
of his acquaintances and his wife.
>> At that camp, her husband geared up for
combat and was even issued a gun.
They were all given gear,
but a lot of them bought their own stuff
because they wanted to have their own or
the gear provided was worn out.
The prices for guns varied.
You had those knockoff Kalashnikovs
which you can get cheap
starting at maybe five or $600.
In order to afford additional equipment,
recruits also required funds from
Germany, supplementing their wage from
ISIS.
[music]
He was paid every month. Money for
living expenses.
They didn't call it a salary, just
living expenses.
You couldn't do much with it.
Maybe to buy extra electricity,
charge your phone, and buy food for the
rest of the month.
How much?
>> $100 for the two of us.
Many fighters and their families turned
to social media for fundraising.
Telegram was especially popular.
But how did the money then reach the war
zones which lacked [music] banks and
ATMs.
>> It was transferred via Western Union to
Turkey.
Then you had to know a Syrian who could
wire it to the country or take it across
the border.
>> Western Union is one of several transfer
services that allow people to send or
receive money anywhere in the world
[music] without a bank account, an
option that terrorist groups happily
exploit.
But no transfer [music] services were
available in places like northeast
Syria. So the money [music] had to
arrive via other means.
>> Major terrorist groups and their
financiers face the problem. How do you
get the money to its destination?
You can use cash couriers, but for that
you need an army of trustworthy people.
You're giving them tens of thousands of
dollars and hope they hand it over on
the other side. and don't just disappear
with it and say great thanks and
goodbye.
>> The solution, hala, a system that also
exists in Germany, albeit largely
without official authorization and most
often illegal. It takes place behind
closed doors, typically in call shops,
jewelry stores, and travel agencies.
Hala is in itself not a bad thing.
It's the oldest form of banking in the
Arab world.
The idea was to transfer money without
the risk of it being stolen by robbers
or crusaders along the way.
How do you move large sums?
You have point A here in Germany and
point B somewhere else.
Two people who know and trust each other
very well, often from the same extended
family.
You have money deposited here and paid
out there. No actual net movement. The
person in Germany calls their partner in
the crisis region and says, "Please pay
person X." Here are some personal
specifics and a password amount y
[clears throat]
€100 from Germany wired to Y in that
crisis region.
All you need is a communication channel
and absolute confidence that the person
will settle that account.
Hala operators known as halaladars
actually need permission from Germany's
financial regulator. But since only a
tiny fraction apply for authorization,
most Hala transfers are illegal.
A hala has zero motivation to keep
records of their criminal activities. Of
course,
they're not going to keep records of who
gave them money or who received it in
that crisis region.
They'll delete or destroy everything
once the transaction is complete so as
not to provide any evidence.
[music]
Authorities are usually unable to trace
where halala funds end up [music] and
how. Which is why the system is used not
only by families wanting to send money
back home, but also by supporters and
members of terrorist organizations.
Martin Heising runs a law office in the
small West German town of Vakbach.
He and his fellow attorney Seren Alen
say they've spent 1,400 days in court
for state security related cases.
Their latest trial, their client, Side
S, stands accused of having sent several
thousand to his [music] brother, who
federal prosecutors say is a member of
ISIS.
The charge, financial [music] support of
a terrorist organization. His lawyers
dispute the accusation.
[music]
I wouldn't deny that he transferred
money to his brother,
but the evidence suggests it was at most
used to support charitable causes for
people who had ties to ISIS but were in
need.
Orphans at the brother's Quran school in
Turkey, for example, or women living in
camps under horrible conditions.
Following the defeat of ISIS in [music]
2019, families of fighters were placed
in displaced persons camps.
Alhole was the biggest camp with over
70,000 detainees.
About 24,000 people lived there at the
beginning of 2026.
Kurdish security forces had been in
control of the region and the camp until
Syrian government troops drove them out
in January 2026 and closed the camp.
Many experts see such camps as a risk
factor as places where radicalization
can take root, flourish, and become
resurgent. The camp remained under
Kurdish control when we filmed.
Co-administrator Jinan Hannan gave us a
personal tour.
We also visited a hala office in the
camp where people receive money from
abroad.
>> My son is wiring me 200,000 Syrian
pounds.
It's been 3 months since our last food
delivery.
[snorts]
200,000 Syrian pounds at the time of
filming equivalent to 13.
A former camp administrator explains the
alternatives.
>> There are money transfer offices
supervised by the security authorities.
There's a limit on the amount you can
receive up to maybe $300.
That's it. Hala only permits small sums
for daily needs, but larger amounts are
smuggled into camps illegally.
Kurdish troops patrolled in and around
the camp around the clock to prevent
smuggling. But it wasn't just money
being brought in and out in secret.
We were shown a hole cut out of the
perimeter fence. One of many attempts to
smuggle out is fighters.
Over the past six months since the fall
of Assad, things have become more
dangerous.
ISIS has become more active.
It seems to be reorganizing, smuggling
money, logistics, phones, and other
communication devices.
We're trying to stop it.
Get down. Get down.
And while we were present, a patrol
looked for two suspects a few hundred
meters away.
Eventually, they caught them.
The two men were then taken for
interrogation. We never found out
whether they were civilians or ISIS
members.
Chaos ensued in the camp as the Syrian
army advanced and Kurdish forces
withdrew from the camp. Observers say
there were a number of escape attempts,
although there are no verified figures.
During her time with IS, Khloe saw many
women who were just as radical as the
men while playing a crucial role in
fundraising.
>> I called them ISIS hooligans.
They're like fan girls following a boy
band.
And they were often far worse than the
men.
While the men were away fighting, those
women were busy behind the scenes.
They're at home all day recruiting other
women online to help for collecting
donations, setting up communications
channels, and obtaining SIM cards.
When one Telegram channel gets shut
down, they need a new number to open a
new one.
They're extremely motivated
and in my opinion pretty dangerous.
[music]
What should social media platforms do to
combat questionable fundraising?
>> Proactive.
>> Current law doesn't require them to do
much proactively unless there's a post
saying, "I'm planning to kill Hunt
Schindler in Berlin at 400 p.m.
tomorrow. Then the platform has to act.
But apart from that very narrow window
where someone's life is in danger, they
don't have to do anything."
The EU's digital services act says
intermediaries have no general
obligation to monitor the information
they transmit or store to look for
evidence of illegal activities.
The legal framework needs updating.
These digital platforms must be required
to cooperate just like financial
institutions.
that have legal requirements to filter
content according to set criteria.
If they detect a fundraising campaign
that is likely linked to terrorism
financing, German investigators would
like to know.
The Austrian city of Lince is home to a
suspected radical Islamic fundraiser.
Mustafa Aesh is an Austrian national
with Palestinian roots. He gained the
attention of German investigators after
allegedly glorifying terrorism on his
telegram channel Gaza now and asking
people to donate money to Hamas.
Austrian police raided his apartment in
March 2024, arresting him on suspicion
of funding terrorism.
Aayash posted a photo of the resulting
damage to his door. He was immediately
added to the sanctions lists of the
British and American authorities, but
not the EU's.
He is suspected of having collected $4.5
million US in donations, some of which
allegedly ended up in Hamas bank
accounts with most of the money coming
from small contributions.
His Gaza now platform used a QR code to
direct donors and their funds to crypto
wallets.
What does Mustafa Ayash say about the
allegations?
We tried to talk to him with a concealed
camera,
but he wasn't home.
Could a neighbor tell us more about him
and his alleged activities?
>> Hello. Do you know Mustafa Aesh?
>> The Palestinian?
>> Yes. He's most certainly in Turkey, the
only place he's safe.
>> The sanctions and investigation didn't
hamper his fundraising attempts or the
posts supporting Hamas and its military
wing, the Alcasam Brigades,
[music] and new QR codes were posted.
As for the man behind Gaza now, we
managed to call him in September 2025.
He confirmed that he was the manager of
the channel, but dismissed the
allegations against him. His words
paraphrased here.
We do not promote any military groups
and
we never collected funds for Hamas.
Austrian prosecutors placed Mustafa Aesh
on an international wanted list in
August 2025 over suspicions of funding
terrorism. The next month he was
arrested at Amsterdam airport and later
extradited to Austria.
February 2025 downtown Munich
preparations are underway for the annual
international security conference. Heads
of state, top ranking officials,
diplomats, and experts from around the
world will meet here.
The no money for terror event was held
on the sidelines. The man who helped
uncover the story behind Mustafa Aesh
and his Gaza media site was part of the
event.
the funds that were raised by Gaza now
they were being funneled to kamas. And
so you know that
case was really you know as a result of
like understanding you know the flows of
money from you know donors via a
humanitarian organization that was
supporting kamas. And then, you know, by
portraying that evidence and showing
that evidence, you know, they can
determine that, you know, it was
actually funding terrorism.
>> A case that [music] showed the growing
importance of cryptocurrency
transactions for terrorist
organizations,
especially for raising funds.
>> Crypto is really useful for anyone in
the world to transact with. I mean, it's
a payment system that transcends
borders. It's instantaneous.
It's low cost. It's easily to port
between different places. And so I think
when you think about, you know, how
terrorists use any
technology, it has to be a technology
that's easy to use and is available to
anyone. And so in a similar way that
terrorists use mobile phones and
terrorists use traditional bank accounts
and gift cards, you know, they also use
uh crypto in the same way.
>> But crypto can provide an opportunity
for investigators too. Transactions
carried out via crypto accounts or
wallets can be traced relatively easily.
In the case of Gaza, now the payments
are said to have added up to $4.5
million. The nice thing that you have in
crypto is that you have a real time
intelligence feed, right? It's one of
the only truly open financial systems
where intelligence services police have
realtime access to the transaction
record. And so it is also possible to
have detection mechanisms that you run
in real time to look at changes in
balances on specific accounts. And so
potentially if this person was known to
authorities beforehand, if there was
some connection to a cryptocurrency
wallet that was known, there is the also
the potential that you can find these
indicators in advance of an attack
rather than after the fact. And then
after the fact obviously you can move
very quickly through analyzing
transactions in a matter of minutes
rather than you know days waiting for
banks to respond to subpoena requests or
uh financial institutions in foreign
jurisdictions to give you records. And
so these investigations can move really
quickly.
>> But as the methods and means used by
investigators evolve so do those of the
people financing the organizations.
Say I want to raise funds online without
using PayPal or other services because
they have internal controls.
I just ask for crypto.
Bitcoin is yesterday's news.
These days they use what are called
privacy coins like Zedcash or Monero.
Either the wallet or the blockchain or
both are encrypted, making payments
invisible to outsiders,
[music]
which makes it increasingly difficult
for investigators to prove if and how
money reaches terrorist organizations.
And in court, that proof is decisive.
[music]
A German court will today announce the
verdict for the man represented by Seren
Alen and Martin Heising.
The charge of forming a terrorist
organization has already been dropped.
But their client can still be convicted
if prosecutors are able to prove that he
sent money to ISIS.
[music]
>> The key passage in the German criminal
code is paragraph 129A section 5. Any
person supporting a prescribed
organization shall be liable to a term
of imprisonment of between six months
and 10 years.
Guilt here depends on the court being
convinced that the money actually
reached ISIS.
>> The evidence is extremely thin. It's
unproven whether our client's brother is
even a member of ISIS. For our client to
be convicted, they have to prove that
the money sent to Turkey reached ISIS.
And that would require the brother to be
in ISIS, and that wasn't proven.
Plus, whether money in the camp went to
an ISIS member cannot be proven either,
which is why we hold that he be
acquitted.
The German Justice Ministry [music]
wants to make things easier for
investigators.
Even an attempt to send money to a
terrorist organization could become a
crime. The ministry published a draft
law in July 2025.
It would also extend paragraph 89 C of
the criminal code, which covers the
raising of funds for terrorism.
The point is not whether the money
actually arrives, but rather proving for
what concrete purpose it was sent.
The law lists acts such as
committing murder, manslaughter, a war
crime, bodily harm, abduction for the
purpose of extortion, or hostage taking.
This effectively means that when
charging someone with funding terrorism,
prosecutors have to connect each euro to
a concrete criminal act, which would
mean a level of stupidity you rarely see
among these financiers.
There was a case a few years ago, some
idiot saying, "I'll send you €500 to
kill the Iraqi prime minister while he's
in Berlin." But he was very specific and
actually was convicted of funding
terrorism. But otherwise, terrorism
financiers are very safe here in
Germany.
>> Very few cases of terrorism funding
actually go to trial.
In 2018, the Federal Prosecution Office
launched 57 investigations with just
three indictments. In 2019, 56
investigations and five indictments. And
in 2020, four indictments from 41
investigations.
>> One useful step would be to do something
similar to the US with its material
support laws. Support there. It doesn't
really matter what you're donating money
for. You could contribute a piece of
chewing gum to a group that's on our
list of prescribed organizations. That
would make you a terrorism financier,
and you're looking at a minimum 10
years. Contrary to the statements made
by then Minister of the Interior Nancy
Fesa, none of the men arrested in
Dusseldorf were charged with funding
terrorism. Although in the case of side
S, prosecutors believe they might secure
a conviction for providing financial
support for a terrorist organization if
they can prove that ISIS actually
received the money.
>> I hereby announce the verdict.
How much money is being funneled from
Germany to terrorist organizations?
The Ministry of Justice says
the Ministry has no reliable statistical
information on this. Terrorism financing
obviously takes place in underground
criminal networks which limits the scope
for investigation.
But the ministry did have figures on
money laundering linked to crowdfunding.
Between 2020 and 2024, [music]
the total amount of money involved in
those cases almost doubled from around
1.3 [music] to over €2.1 million. Those
figures do not tell the full story,
however, as they do not include the
micro donations that are unconnected
[music]
to money laundering, such as via
crowdfunding appeals on social media.
[music]
Of course, we need a better legal
framework. You can never be good enough.
In this arms race between prevention and
terrorism funding, governments have to
constantly evolve because the other side
adapts too.
We are currently about 20 years behind.
It would be nice if it were just five.
Only three of the seven defendants were
found guilty by the court in Dusseldorf
of providing financial support for a
terrorist organization.
What about side s the man represented by
Martin Heising and Seren Alen?
>> And what is your reaction?
>> The sentence was a little lower than I
was expecting. They could have added
more time. Four years is acceptable
given the judicial panel's assessment.
Could have been a bit less, too. We're
hoping for a 2/3 release. With time
already served, he'd have 11 months
left, and I'm confident we'll get that.
The court ultimately found Side S guilty
of being a member of a foreign terrorist
organization and of having violated
Germany's foreign trade laws.
Khloe's husband is believed to have
ended up in an ISIS prison in Syria
without trial.
My husband was arrested by ISIS because
he stopped working, as they called it,
and didn't report to anyone.
They were looking for him. There were
patrols in the city, and he'd gone out
with a friend to buy groceries and
exchange money.
He never came back.
For Chloe, an opportunity to escape. She
contacted a smuggler after getting a SIM
card in the city.
>> At first, you're really scared. Anyone
could be pro-ISIS and betray you.
But eventually, you're so worn down, you
don't care anymore.
You think whether I get done in by a
bomb or get shot by some jerk while
escaping,
no difference.
The smuggler texted to say he would pick
her up during Friday prayers when most
people would be attending mosque.
>> I was kind of nervous, but at the same
time, it's hard to explain. You're
nervous but also calm because you have
to function.
There's no other option.
And the option worked. She made it out
of Syria and eventually to Germany.
Once back home, however, she got two
years in jail for having joined ISIS.
There will always be people who send
money out of sympathy or pity, even if
they're actually against what's
happening there. They find it unfair
that people there are left on their own,
that there are children starving or
dying from disease.
It's not right.
And that opens the door for these
support networks, for radicals.
Funding for Islamist groups continues to
flow from Germany via both shadowy and
less covert channels. Groups that
continue [music] to pose a threat to
Europe as well.
[music]