Alleged Hamas fundraiser to undercover agent: I have a network in New York

US federal investigators have charged two brothers in Louisiana with fundraising for Hamas, according to court filings unsealed on Tuesday, in the latest in a series of cases alleging financial support for the terrorist group in the US.

Abdel Adhami and Omar Adhami were charged with providing material support to a terrorist organization in a federal Louisiana court.

Court filings said Abdel Adhami coordinated Hamas fundraising with an individual named Saleem Alzaq. The FBI said it believed Alzaq is based in Gaza and had posted Hamas propaganda on social media since at least 2021.

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Adhami and Alzaq coordinated the collection and distribution of funds to support Hamas on Snapchat, investigators said.

Adhami began soliciting funds on Instagram the week after the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led massacre, instructing followers to use a Western Union account to “donate to our afflicted brothers in Gaza.” He also appeared to have solicited funds from acquaintances.

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The complaint indicated that the network also routed funds through a purported charity in France. The name of the charity was redacted.

Adhami and Alzaq used codewords to disguise their activity. Messages included in the criminal complaint showed both repeatedly referring to “bread” or “bread people,” and instructing others to use the terms.

A Hamas fundraising case filed in the US last week said that “bread” had been used as a codeword for Hamas.

While discussing “bread” in 2024, Alzaq told Adhami, “They are present at al-Shifa Hospital,” a medical center in Gaza that had housed Hamas terrorists, according to IDF documentation.

“By God, every time I see one of the bread people do something, I would wish I was there with him,” Adhami said several weeks later. “I ask God almighty that I be one of those who make jihad with their money.”

“The one who wages jihad with money is also considered a jihadist,” he said in another message.

Adhami instructed his brother on how to send money abroad, telling him, “The prophet said, ‘He who equips a fighter is as if he has taken part in the fighting himself.’”

“When you want to send something, you tell him, ‘This amount for the bread,’ and he will understand. Don’t mention anything by its name on WhatsApp and use the word ‘bread’ instead,” he said.

Adhami used PayPal to send more than $83,000 abroad to three recipients. The locations of two of the recipients were redacted, while the third was in Gaza. His brother allegedly sent more than $6,000 to Alzaq and his associates.

Alzaq also contacted an NYPD undercover agent in November 2025 to ask for donations to Gaza. Alzaq told the agent that he had “friends” in New York, Ohio and “all over the United States.”

He suggested that the agent send funds to other associates in the US, and that the money be transferred “from account to account,” apparently to obscure its provenance, before it was sent to Gaza via PayPal.

“Let me see my friends in New York, and they are all from Palestine,” Alzaq said. “They are American, all of them. They are young people and they send me all the time. They never fall short with us, they fund us.”

The case appeared related to an investigation announced in Florida last month, which charged Raed Yousef, 56, with funneling tens of thousands of dollars to Hamas, misleading US authorities and committing financial crimes.

The case against Yousef said he had a co-conspirator in the Eastern District of Louisiana, where the Adhamis were charged, and another co-conspirator in a charity front group in France, like the Adhami case.

That case indicated that one of the Louisiana conspirators had recruited Yousef to donate to Hamas and instructed him to also use the codeword “bread.”

The cases were the latest in at least seven federal US investigations into alleged Gaza terrorism fundraising in the past year.

In each of the investigations, the defendants are accused of using false humanitarian initiatives to fund Gaza-based terrorists.

The schemes were all allegedly international efforts using crowdfunding platforms, encrypted messaging, social media and cryptocurrency.

The investigations appeared similar to the case against the Holy Land Foundation, a purported charity that funneled more than $12 million to Hamas in the 1990s and early 2000s. The so-called Holy Land Five, who were imprisoned, remain popular figures in the anti-Zionist movement.

Yousef and at least one other defendant, Reda Mazen Rida Sabassi, had referred to the Holy Land Foundation, according to court filings.

A search of Sabassi’s electronic devices showed that he had searched for information about the Holy Land Foundation online.

During a search of Yousef’s home, investigators found written material about the Holy Land Foundation.

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