Man guilty of using Bitcoin to fund ISIS

28-year-old Hisham Chaudhary has been found guilty of using Bitcoin to fund the ISIS terrorist group.

Having denied using the cryptocurrency to back the organisation's terrorism, as well as spreading propaganda online, the Leicestershire resident was found guilty of seven offences under the Terrorism Act by a jury at Birmingham Crown Court. He will be sentenced on 3 September.

Counter Terrorism Policing North East said he raised thousands of pounds and converted it to Bitcoin, which he used to send ISIS money to free supporters of the group from detention camps in Syria.

The jury convicted him of four counts of disseminating a terrorist publication, two counts of funding terrorism and one count of membership of a proscribed organisation.

Det Ch Supt Martin Snowden, head of Counter Terrorism Policing North East, said: "Proscribed organisations present a very real risk to our security. Anyone demonstrating support for such a group, in any form, will be prosecuted without exception.

"Despite the weight of the evidence against him, Hisham Chaudhary has tried to present himself as a humanitarian. He is in fact a terrorist and has been recognised as such by the jury."