Criminal investigation report can be read here.
Jihadist US teen faces prison for blog, tweets about encryption and Bitcoin
Boy also radicalized another teen, helping him get to Syria to fight with ISIL.
A 17-year-old Virginia teen faces up to 15 years in prison for blog and Twitter posts about encryption and Bitcoin that were geared at assisting ISIL, which the US has designated as a terror organization.
The teen, Ali Shukri Amin, who contributed to the Coin Brief news site, pleaded guilty (PDF) Thursday to a federal charge of providing material support to the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant.
Dana Boente, the US Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, said the youth’s guilty plea “demonstrates that those who use social media as a tool to provide support and resources to ISIL will be identified and prosecuted with no less vigilance than those who travel to take up arms with ISIL.”
According to the defendant’s signed “Admission of Facts” filed Thursday, Amin started the @amreekiwitness Twitter handle last June and acquired some 4,000 followers and tweeted about 7,000 times. (The Twitter handle has been suspended.) Last July, the teen tweeted a link on how jihadists could use Bitcoin “to fund their efforts.”
According to Amin’s court admission (PDF):
The article explained what Bitcoins were, how the Bitcoin system worked and suggested using Dark Wallet, a new Bitcoin wallet, which keeps the user of Bitcoins anonymous. The article included statements on how to set up an anonymous donations system to send money, using Bitcoin, to the mujahedeen.
In August, the youth tweeted that the Khilafah—Islam’s political system and messenger—needed an official website “ASAP” and that ISIL should stop releasing propaganda “in the wild” and instead should consider using JustPaste.it.
“Through various tweets, the defendant provided information on how to prevent the website from being taken down, by adding security defenses, and he solicited others via Twitter to assist on the development of the website,” according to his signed admission.
On his blog, the boy “authored a series of highly technical articles targeted at aspiring jihadists and ISIL supporters detailing the use of security measures in online communications to include the use of encryption and anonymity software, tools and techniques, as well as the use of the virtual currency Bitcoin as a means to anonymously fund ISIL.”
Sentencing for the honor student at Osbourn Park High School of Manassas is scheduled for August 28. The boy remains jailed.
Amin’s lawyer, Joseph Flood, said his client’s motivation was religion and distaste for the Syrian government. “Sometimes people feel frustrated in their inability to effect change against a government committing atrocities,” Flood said. “He was blogging on the Internet. It’s as simple as that.”
Amin is also accused of radicalizing an 18-year-old Virginia youth, Reza Niknejad, who traveled to Syria in January to join ISIL. Niknejad was charged Wednesday with conspiring to provide material support to ISIL and conspiring to kill and injure people abroad. Amin admitted that he helped Niknejad get a mobile phone, assisted him with travel, and hooked him up with ISIL supporters overseas.
He also said he delivered a letter from Niknejad to his family. The letter said that Niknejad “did not plan to see his family again.”
