Cardiff Terrorist Khuram Iqbal Jailed For Dark Web Bitcoin Trading

Khuram Iqbal, a 29-year-old convicted terrorist, has been jailed for 16 months after trading cryptocurrencies on the dark web.

Iqbal, who is a British national based out of Cardiff, made 392 transactions with nearly $15,900 (£12,000) worth of deposited funds between Nov. 10, 2017, and March 20, 2021. He made three Bitcoin transactions on a dark website that was used for selling stolen credit card credentials in January 2020, as per BBC.

The transactions were made via his account on the crypto exchanging platform Coinbase. The platform had reported to the police about the suspicious transactions at that time.

The convicted terrorist confessed to trading in cryptocurrencies but denied using the dark web. However, his mobile phone, which was confiscated by the police, showed applications that enabled access to the dark web.

"The nature of cryptocurrency is that it is not traceable so the reality is he was in a position to operate two email addresses and two cryptocurrency accounts beneath the radar of the police," Prosecutor Paul Jarvis told BBC adding, there was no "lawful reason" for the transactions.

This is not the first time Iqbal got behind bars. In 2014, he was jailed for disseminating terrorist publications and possessing terrorist information.

At the time, he was jailed for over three years and was released on license in May 2015 but returned to jail a year later.