FBI seizes fake Tor hosted Jihad funding website as part of Operation Onymous, leaves up real site
During Operation Onymous the FBI seized a fake clone of a jihad funding site while leaving the real version online, highlighting the scattershot nature of the takedowns
As part of Operation Onymous the FBI seized some 276 Tor hidden services, many of which were clone or scam websites. One of the websites the FBI seized that we located during our crawl was titled “Fund the Islamic Struggle Anonymously”. The website had a short message for visitors where it asked for donations towards setting up “a new Islamic front in the USA and around the world”, and that visitors could send these donations “without leaving a trace”.
The problem, as with a lot of the other seizures as part of Operation Onymous, is that the FBI seized a fake version of the site. The FBI seized version was hosted at bc3nbr42tdnqamvs.onion is (or was) displaying a seizure notice, while the real version of the website can still be found at teir4baj5mpvkg5n.onion
Here is what the site looks like right now:
The Bitcoin address on the website, 13Pcmh4dKJE8Aqrhq4ZZwmM1sbKFcMQEEV, shows that just over 5 BTC has been donated to it.
The FBI made no mention of seizing a jihadi fundraising website as part of Operation Onymous, and in any case they left the real version of the site live.