Federal authorities in September charged defendants in three cases alleging support for the Houthis and Hamas. The cases accuse a Department of Energy engineer of attempting to aid the Houthis and two Louisiana brothers and a Florida beauty-store owner of financing Hamas, including through donations presented as humanitarian relief.
On September 30, federal prosecutors charged Ashton Hamed Ellaboudy, a DOE employee, with attempting to provide material support to Ansar Allah, the Iranian-backed terrorist group in Yemen known as the Houthis; the FBI arrested him the following day.
“As alleged, a U.S. government employee traveled overseas and used his specialized expertise in an attempt to aid the Houthis, a designated Foreign Terrorist Organization backed by Iran,” said Assistant Attorney General for National Security John A. Eisenberg. “Additionally, Ellaboudy acquired materials for the construction of explosive material and drones capable of delivering these explosives.”
Ellaboudy, 51, a resident of Richland, Washington, works as an electrical engineer at the DOE’s Hanford Site. He previously worked for the Army Corps of Engineers and served in the United States Navy.
According to court documents, between November 2024 and February 2025, several companies reported that Ellaboudy had purchased chemicals and components commonly used to manufacture explosives, along with drone parts, and had them shipped to his home. The FBI later learned from his DOE supervisor that Ellaboudy had taken sick leave after exposure to concentrated nitric acid, which he said he was using to make amateur rocket propellant.
According to federal authorities and the criminal complaint, by April 2025, an FBI informant had reportedly been introduced to Ellaboudy. In subsequent conversations with informants, he discussed drones, praised Houthi attacks on shipping, and expressed an interest in traveling to Yemen. In September 2025, Ellaboudy reportedly traveled through Oman into Yemen using an official US passport. After returning, he told an informant that he had tried to reach Sanaa to establish contact with Houthi leader Abdul Malik al Houthi or his associates but had been unable to reach the city.
In May 2026, an FBI informant posing as a shipping intermediary introduced Ellaboudy by telephone to another informant posing as a Houthi colonel. Ellaboudy allegedly spent the next few months testing and preparing equipment, then helping load it for what he believed would be shipment to the Houthis for a mobile communications station. Investigators allege that he used his DOE workstation to research communications equipment.
Ellaboudy faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted.
Separately, on September 11, the Department of Justice charged Abdel Adhami and his brother Omar with financing Hamas through an alleged fundraising network involving Saleem Alzaq, a Gaza resident prosecutors say is a Hamas member who solicited donations online. The brothers were arrested in mid-September in Louisiana, and details of the case were reported on October 1 after court filings were unsealed. Both men are charged with providing material support to a terrorist organization, conspiracy to provide material support, conspiracy to commit wire fraud, and conspiracy to commit money laundering.
According to court documents, in March 2023, the New York Police Department began investigating Saleem Alzaq’s purported Gaza relief fundraising network after observing Hamas propaganda on his social media accounts. Abdel’s first known contact with Alzaq via Snapchat occurred in June 2023. Between October and November 2023, Abdel allegedly sent money and solicited support after the October 7 attacks. He reportedly told his brother to use “bread” as a codeword for Hamas and explained that donations supported fighters as well as civilians.
In June 2024, Israel’s National Bureau for Counter Terror Financing informed the FBI that Alzaq was a Hamas member and battalion deputy in the Shujaiyya Brigade’s media office. In April 2025, it provided further information identifying him as with Hamas’s Khalid Bin al-Walid Brigade, Ammar bin Yasir Platoon.
In September 2024, an undercover NYPD officer contacted Alzaq through Facebook, then moved the conversation to WhatsApp. In March 2025, Alzaq referred the undercover officer to Abdel for assistance in sending donations. Abdel allegedly discussed payment methods and hinted at activities in Gaza beyond humanitarian aid that he would not explain by telephone.
In September 2025, US Customs and Border Protection seized Abdel’s phone for examination after he returned from an overseas trip. Abdel had told authorities that he was traveling with his family to Ramallah to build a house in the nearby village of Surda.
From December 2025 to January 2026, Abdel and Alzaq continued communicating with undercover officers. Alzaq explained that donations could be processed through Abdel’s store as if they were purchases and allegedly confirmed that funds reached Hamas. Abdel allegedly described his support as “Jihad by money.”
From 2023 to 2026, Abdel allegedly funneled more than $83,000 to Hamas while his brother allegedly sent $6,000.
“Our intelligence analysts uncovered this international finance network and built the case that exposed more than $2 million being funneled to Hamas,” NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch said in a statement.
Abdel and Alzaq’s case is connected to a separate Florida prosecution of Raed Yousef, 56, who was also charged in Florida in September with funding Hamas through a purported humanitarian organization in France. Yousef’s indictment alleges that a co-conspirator in Louisiana recruited him to donate and told him that contributions reached Hamas members as well as civilians.
A federal grand jury in the Middle District of Florida indicted Yousef on September 15 on 19 felony counts, including conspiracy and attempt to provide material support to Hamas, providing funds to a specially designated terrorist, international money laundering, and passport fraud. Prosecutors say he sent “more than $45,000” to the French group “via PayPal … knowing the funds were intended for” Hamas, and that he was “arrested after landing in Tampa” following “more than a month-long stint in the Middle East.”
