Onchain evidence was key to securing convictions of three individuals for terrorism financing in Indonesia in 2024 and 2025, signaling a shift in how courts treat blockchain data.
“Indonesian courts have demonstrated that cryptocurrency evidence — wallet addresses, transaction histories, on-chain flows — is not only admissible but can anchor a terrorism financing prosecution,” TRM said.
TRM noted that terrorism financing networks have increasingly preferred cryptocurrency to move funds, in part because authorities and regulators were slower to apply the same scrutiny as for fiat channels. That is changing as Indonesian investigators and prosecutors rely more on blockchain intelligence.
In one case, authorities traced a defendant sending more than $49,000 in USDT across 15 transactions from a local exchange to a foreign platform. Those funds were later routed to an ISIS-linked fundraising campaign in Syria, the blockchain analytics firm reported.
Indonesia’s financial intelligence team and counterterrorism police unit Densus 88 conducted the blockchain analysis and presented the findings to courts, which accepted the on-chain data as key evidence in all three cases.
TRM said similar patterns are emerging across Southeast Asia, where governments are investing in blockchain intelligence capabilities and strengthening public–private collaboration to combat illicit finance risks. Singapore and Malaysia’s financial intelligence units and law enforcement agencies are reportedly building technical capacity to trace cryptocurrency flows.
Regional enforcement actions include the April 1 capture and extradition of Li Xiong, a leader of Cambodia-based Huione Group, to China. The group operated scam centers that ran “pig butchering” and other crypto investment frauds. Li’s extradition follows the arrest of Chen Zhi, head of Prince Group, which operates Huione Group.
TRM also reported that illicit entities received approximately $141 billion worth of stablecoins in 2025, a five-year high, underscoring the scale of illicit stablecoin activity.
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