On June 17, 2026, the U.S. Department of Justice unsealed a five-count criminal complaint charging Reda Mazen Rida Sabassi, a 38-year-old San Diego resident, with allegedly raising approximately $600,000 in purported humanitarian donations and routing the funds to Hamas through his charity, Ikram — The Arab Charity Foundation Inc. Four of the five counts — including conspiracy to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization — carry 20-year maximum prison sentences.
Kharon data flagged Sabassi and Ikram in October 2023 — five months before OFAC designated Gaza Now, the Hamas fundraising vehicle through which Sabassi allegedly routed funds, and more than two and a half years before the DOJ indictment. Kharon first published data regarding Gaza Now and its ties to Hamas in July 2021. The Ikram connection surfaced because both organizations had been listed as joint participants in the same two public fundraising campaigns — a March 2023 Ramadan food basket effort and an October 2023 Gaza donation drive.
Inside the Network
The alleged Hamas funding pipeline DOJ describes in the complaint runs through two entities. Gaza Now, listed by OFAC in March 2024 as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist under Executive Order 13224, is described by U.S. authorities as “key financial facilitators involved in fundraising for Hamas.” Ikram operated as a U.S.-based conduit — soliciting donations from American donors for what its public campaigns presented as Gaza humanitarian aid, then allegedly funneling the funds to Gaza Now and on to Hamas. Between December 2023 and February 2024, per the complaint, Sabassi raised approximately $600,000; about $116,000 was sent directly to a Hamas member, and about $382,000 was allegedly converted (or attempted to be converted) into cryptocurrency and routed to Hamas through Gaza Now. The complaint states that Sabassi and a co-conspirator “joked privately that they should name the fundraiser after Hamas’s al-Qassam Brigades, before agreeing to use Sabassi’s Ikram.”
Kharon first published research on Gaza Now in July 2021, after the organization publicly endorsed Hamas — nearly three years before OFAC's SDGT designation. When Ikram surfaced in 2023 as a joint participant alongside Gaza Now in two public fundraising campaigns, Kharon's data flagged the overlap.
Most screening tools and datasets check whether a name appears on a government list, or provide generic beneficial owner information. Kharon maps the relationships behind the risk — ties to terrorist organizations, fundraising co-participation, shared accounts, and trade and financial counterparties — surfacing threats that generic solutions and government lists don’t capture.
What The Indictment Triggers
As a result of the indictment, U.S. banks and money services businesses that processed donations to Ikram, or wire activity involving Sabassi, need to identify prior transactions, file appropriate SARs, and assess exposure under the criminal conspiracy charges. Crypto exchanges that touched Sabassi’s roughly $382,000 in attempted conversion activity face the same review, with the added complexity of on-chain forensics. Crowdfunding platforms that hosted Ikram’s solicitation campaigns have to determine whether their Know Your Customer (KYC) and Countering the Financing of Terrorism (CFT) screening should have caught the Gaza Now connection earlier. Donor-advised funds, charity rating agencies, and other charitable organizations that partnered with Ikram on joint campaigns now have public-record evidence — and a federal criminal complaint — to update their own risk frameworks.
For institutions monitoring Sabassi and Ikram through Kharon, none of that work begins from scratch. The Hamas risk exposure was identified in October 2023 — long before there was a public action to react to.
The Bigger Picture
Sabassi and Ikram aren't unique — they're a pattern. Kharon continuously identifies entities with nexuses to terror financing networks: connections to designated organizations, fundraising participation with sanctioned facilitators, shared accounts, and overlapping partners. Kharon data keeps you ahead of the risk.
Kharon continuously monitors the networks that matter — flagging exposure before it reaches your desk. Request a briefing to learn more today.
