A man from Ontario is one of four people charged in the United States with allegedly raising funds to support the terrorist organization ISIS.

In a press release issued on Thursday by the U.S. Department of Justice, it stated that the four defendants raised more than $35,000 through cryptocurrency campaigns and other crowdfunding campaigns and transferred the proceeds to Bitcoin wallets and accounts, which are believed to fund the terrorist group.

On Wednesday, a criminal case was filed against the four defendants before a federal court in New York, revealing their identities and what led to their arrest.

They are Mohamed David Hashmi, 35 years old from Virginia, Abdullah Taqi from New York, Seema Rahman, 25 years old from New Jersey, and Khalilullah Yusuf, 34 years old from Ontario.

They were charged with conspiracy to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization, with the Department of Justice stating that Yusuf was arrested on Wednesday by Canadian law enforcement authorities under a temporary detention order from the United States.

In the disclosed documents, Yusuf and Hashmi are alleged to have been part of a group chat referred to as Group Chat-1 on encrypted social media and a mobile email messaging service that helped connect ISIS supporters and other groups adhering to similar violent ideologies.

It is also alleged that members of the group chat discussed in April 2021 about posting convincing donation links for humanitarian causes but that were actually intended to help “mujahideen,” an Arabic term used by ISIS supporters to refer to ISIS fighters.

It is also alleged that Yusuf provided a link to a specific Bitcoin address while another member of the group chat posted a link to a PayPal campaign. The two accounts are alleged to have been controlled by an individual referred to in the documents as Facilitator-1.

According to the documents, the four defendants raised and contributed more than $35,000 to Facilitator-1 through a range of cryptocurrencies and other sources between February 2021 and July 2022.

Yusuf is alleged to have contributed $20,347.89 to the Bitcoin campaign, and a man from Ontario created several GoFundMe campaigns with one of the other defendants and distorted them for charitable purposes.

In this regard, U.S. attorney Breon Peace for the Eastern District of New York said in the press release: "I commend our prosecutors and the FBI New York Joint Terrorism Task Force for breaking the veil of secrecy to identify the perpetrators of this scheme, exposing the truly nefarious nature of these virtual financial transfers, and bringing to justice those who seek to enable acts of violent extremism."

Meanwhile, it is also alleged that one of the defendants, Hashmi, made statements indicating he wanted to die in a fight or terrorist attack on behalf of a foreign terrorist organization. These claims have not been proven in court.

Also, the Department of Justice said that the charges faced by the defendants could carry a legal penalty of up to 20 years if convicted.