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On May 24, the Treasury Department imposed sanctions on the Hamas Investment Office, which manages companies in Turkey, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Algeria, and the United Arab Emirates, with assets estimated at more than $500 million. The Under Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorist Financing and Financial Crimes, Elizabeth Rosenberg, stated in this regard, that Hamas has generated large sums of revenue through financial operators while destabilizing Gaza with a violent agenda that harms both Israelis and Palestinians. In consequence, Washington aims to deny Hamas the ability to generate and move funds that it uses in the promotion and execution of violence in the region.
Since 2017, Usama Ali has been the head of the Hamas Investment Office, and the U.S. Treasury release specifically singled out his deputy Hisham Younis Yahia Qafisheh, a Jordanian based in Turkey, as a key operator in the transfer of funds through Hamas investment portfolio companies.
Qafisheh has held key positions in Hamas-controlled companies. He was a board member of Sudan’s Agrogate Holding and vice chairman of the board of Turkey’s Trend GYO, where, as of 2018, Hamas controls about 75% issued of Trend GYO, and was planning a private issuance of more than $15 million of Trend GYO shares. Qafisheh is also chairman of Al Rowad Real Estate in Sudan and managed the real estate and construction company Anda Company in Saudi Arabia.
The Double Cheque website, which investigates business activities that facilitate terrorism, reveals Hamas’ investment network in Turkey. Prominent among Trend GYO’s subsidiaries and contractors is Turkey’s real estate investment fund Gayrimenkul Yatırım Ortaklığı of IYS Yapi Co. whose board of directors is chaired by Hisham Qafisheh and whose CEO is Hamas Walid Jadallah, both of whom are Hamas operatives. Expert Yapi Co is another Turkish contractor, a subsidiary of Trend, whose CEO is Hamas operative Amer al-Shava.
Double Cheque also lists Uzmanlar Co, which operates in Turkey, Jordan, Dubai, and Saudi Arabia. Hamas operatives Ahmad Odeh, Ahmad al-Maghrebi, Amar al-Shava, Ahmad Jahleb and Ayman al-Duwaik are partners and board members alongside Hamas facilitator Muhammad Bin Mahfouz. Since 2014, Uzmanlar has subsidiaries that import and export elevators and air conditioners and investments in the tourism sector.
Advancity Co. is another Turkish construction company, a subsidiary of Anda Gayrimenkul Co. founded in 2014, whose CEO and chairman, Amar al-Shava, is a Hamas operative. AG Yapi Co. is a construction contractor subsidiary of Anda Gayrimenkul Co. founded in Turkey in 2007 whose shareholders and board members include Hamas insiders such as Hisham Qafisheh, Saleh Mangoush, Muhammad Bin Mahfouz, and Amar al-Shava.
The most scandalous aspect of those revealed by Double Cheque is that of the Hamas-controlled Turkish company Trend GYO, with subsidiaries and a real estate investment fund in Turkey, because Trend has been listed on the Istanbul stock exchange since 2018.
Hamas, a terrorist organization, raises funds legally on the Istanbul stock exchange that invests, among other things, in a real estate project fund. The Erdoğan regime has allegedly granted Turkish citizenship to senior members of the terrorist organization.
Guillermo Rodríguez is a professor of Political Economy in the extension area of the Faculty of Economic and Administrative Sciences at Universidad Monteávila, in Caracas. A researcher at the Juan de Mariana Center and author of several books // Guillermo es profesor de Economía Política en el área de extensión de la Facultad de Ciencias Económicas y Administrativas de la Universidad Monteávila, en Caracas, investigador en el Centro Juan de Mariana y autor de varios libros