In the first week of January 2025, the Fund issued over USD766 million to approximately 14,700 claimants and will continue issuing payments on a rolling basis.

The Fund was established by Congress and is administered by the Criminal Division’s Money Laundering and Asset Recovery Section, under the leadership of the Special Master. The Fund has previously allocated more than USD6,000 million for thousands of victims of state-sponsored terrorism and their families in four rounds of distributions and one round of lump sum catch-up payments. The distribution announced today brings total authorized distributions to over USD7,000 million. Apart from an initial appropriation of approximately USD1,000 million from Congress and additional congressional appropriations for lump sum catch-up payments, funds available for distributions result from certain Justice Department prosecutions and cases and other U.S. government enforcement actions.

In 2024, the Fund accepted more than 4,500 newly eligible claimants, bringing the total number of eligible claimants to more than 20,000. Amounts outstanding and unpaid on these claims exceed USD120,000 million. Claims are anticipated to grow in the coming years as more victims of state-sponsored terrorism apply to the Fund. While the amount of funds available is not sufficient to compensate the victims’ claims in full, this compensation provides some measure of justice for victims of state‑sponsored terrorism.

However, now information is given as to which states are accused, where actions took place or who the beneficiaries are. A list of the cases in which moneys have been obtained, and references to the trial documents, would have been helpful.