Two Louisiana brothers have been charged with allegedly helping finance Hamas through an international fundraising network that solicited donations under the guise of humanitarian assistance for Gaza, in a case uncovered with the help of an undercover New York Police Department operation.
Abdel and Omar Adhami were arrested last month in Louisiana and face federal charges stemming from alleged efforts to raise money online and transfer funds to Saleem Alzaq, a Gaza-based Hamas figure who prosecutors say used social media to spread propaganda and solicit donations.
The wider operation allegedly collected at least $1.7 million from donors around the world, including more than $626,000 from donors in the United States. NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch said investigators ultimately uncovered a financial network involving more than $2 million being funneled to Hamas. The investigation took a remarkable turn in November 2025 when Alzaq inadvertently established contact on Snapchat with an undercover NYPD detective operating under the name “Hussain.”
Court documents do not establish whether the undercover officer ultimately transferred money to Abdel. According to federal investigators, Abdel used multiple Snapchat accounts between 2021 and 2025 to disseminate Hamas propaganda and solicit donations, while directing followers toward a Telegram account that published material supporting Hamas and ‘Palestinian’ Islamic Jihad alongside fundraising appeals. He also allegedly solicited money through Instagram while presenting the fundraising as assistance for people in Gaza.
2+Investigators accuse Abdel of sending more than $83,000 connected to the network between 2023 and 2026, including approximately $81,000 through two PayPal accounts and another $2,000 through Western Union. The brothers used code words to conceal their activities, including the term “bread,” referring to Hamas operatives and financing. “This is the message I wanted to convey to the person who donated the bread,” Alzaq wrote to Abdel via Snapchat in January 2024, according to court documents, adding that “some of them received the bread, thank God.” The conspiracy began to unravel when the Hamas operative, Alzaq, mistakenly contacted the undercover NYPD detective.
2+He later instructed the detective to contact Abdel directly to coordinate methods for transferring funds, noting that the young man transfers money to him on a monthly basis. It’s unclear whether the undercover detective actually transferred any money to Abdel, who assured the officer via WhatsApp that “everything is legal, God willing.” The two brothers now face charges of providing material support to a terrorist organization and wire fraud.
2+The operative Alzaq was charged with conspiracy to provide material support to a terrorist organization, conspiracy to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, conspiracy to commit money laundering, and conspiracy to defraud the United States.
NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch addressed the arrests in a statement, saying that “the NYPD’s counterterrorism work knows no borders.” She said, “Our intelligence analysts uncovered this international financial network and built the case that exposed more than $2 million being transferred to the terrorist organization Hamas,” adding that this is the kind of exceptional counterterrorism work the NYPD does every day to disrupt threats before they reach New York.