Leader of $1.7M Hamas fundraising scheme bragged about friends in NY: feds

An alleged Hamas member who purportedly raised nearly $2 million for the terror group under the guise of humanitarian aid for ailing kids in Gaza bragged about his “friends” in New York, new court papers claim.Saleem Alzaq, who works in Hamas’ “media office,” boasted that he had “so many” friends in the Big Apple in a 2025 exchange with an undercover NYPD agent over Snapchat, federal prosecutors alleged.“My friends are in New York, so many of them; they are in New York and in the state of Ohio and all over the United States,” Alzaq allegedly told the officer, who had asked how he could contribute.“Let me see my friends in New York, and they are all from Palestine, from the West Bank and from Jerusalem, and they are American, all of them; they are young people and they send me all the time,” he said, according to the court docs.The 45-year-old alleged Hamas mouthpiece, who is believed to still be at-large in Gaza, was indicted on Thursday in Manhattan federal court on charges of funneling $1.7 million to Hamas in “donations” he claimed would be earmarked for humanitarian aid.Court papers do not reveal what Hamas did with the money, or if the cash was used in any terror plots.Alzaq’s alleged chat with an NYPD undercover using the name “Hussain” was revealed in a separate but related federal complaint unsealed in Louisiana court earlier this week.Abdel Adhami and his sibling Omar Adhami were arrested in the Pelican State for allegedly funneling cash to Alzaq.Abdel allegedly funneled more than $83,000 to Hamas from 2023 to 2026 while his brother is accused of sending $6,000.A Florida man, Raed Yousef, was separately charged with funneling nearly $50,000 to Hamas, while three more of Alzaq’s alleged associates — Faouzi Barika, Amel Oualid and Nordine Barika, were arrested in France by the French General Directorate for Internal Security, according to US officials.

No one based in New York has been charged in the case to date.“This o...