Spoils of war from Hamas? Associates of the terror group are accused of making more than $900 MILLION by shorting shares in Israel’s largest bank weeks before the October 7 massacre.

Hamas-linked financiers made hundreds of millions of dollars in profits by shorting Israeli stocks before the Oct. 7 massacre, two analysts say.

An unidentified trader ‘shorted’ 4.43 million shares in Israel’s largest bank, Leumi, between September 15 and October 5 – meaning they gambled that the price of Leumi’s shares would fall.

Indeed, after the October 7 attack, Leumi’s share price plummeted as operations were paralyzed, netting a $900 million profit for the trader, who is believed to have ties to Hamas.

The trade and others were unearthed by Robert J. Jackson, Jr., of New York University School of Law, and Joshua Mitts of Columbia Law School.

On Monday they published a report on their findings titled: ‘Trade in terror?’

They have speculated that the money may have been funneled back into Hamas operations. Jackson and Mitts did not identify who was behind the transactions, but noted they were highly unusual.

“Our findings suggest that traders who were aware of the coming attacks took advantage of these tragic events, and consistent with previous literature, we show that this type of trading occurs amid gaps in U.S. and international enforcement of legal bans on informed trading.” , they write.

Joshua Mitts (left), of Columbia Law School, and Robert J. Jackson, Jr, of New York University School of Law (right), published their analysis of the transactions on Monday

“We contribute to the growing literature on trade related to geopolitical events and offer suggestions for policymakers concerned about profitable trade based on information about the coming military conflict.”

And another trader on October 2 executed as many as 227,000 short trades against the EIS – the Enterprise Investment Scheme (EIS), a security traded on the New York Stock Exchange.

The EIS gives investors exposure to Israeli exchange-traded funds.

The value of EIS fell 7.1 percent on October 11 – the first day the US market was open after the terrorist attack – and lost 17.5 percent of its value within the first month, meaning that one trader profited handsomely from the transactions of October 2.

Revelers flee the Supernova Peace Festival during the October 7 attacks that killed more than 1,200 Israelis

On October 7, Hamas terrorists are seen taking hostages from communities near Gaza

The terrorists are seen storming through the Gaza border fence on October 7

Abandoned and torched vehicles at the site of the October 7 attack on the Supernova Desert Music Festival in southern Israel

Jackson and Mitts concluded, “It is extremely unlikely that the volume of short selling on October 2 was due to chance.”

The pair said the transactions raised suspicions that they could have been carried out by someone with prior knowledge of the Hamas attack.

“While we do not see an overall increase in shorting of Israeli companies on US exchanges, we do identify a sharp and unusual increase, just before the attacks, in trading of risky short-dated options on these companies that expire shortly after the attacks,” they wrote. .

Hamas, which has been banned as a terrorist organization by the United States since 1997, cannot transact on the open market.

Any Hamas figure who tries to do this risks having his assets frozen by the US Treasury Department.

But the group has benefited from innovative financing systems, such as cryptocurrency.

A report from the Wall Street Journal found that three terrorist groups – Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and its Lebanese ally Hezbollah – collectively received more than $134 million in crypto between August 2021 and June 2023.

Hamas received about $41 million in digital currencies over the past nearly two years, the Journal reported.

Islamic Jihad received $93 million.