Federal investigators are scrutinizing a shadowy UK-based nonprofit accused of amassing a $100 million fund to finance anti-Israel activity, and the probe leads back to a well-connected ally of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani.
The Department of Homeland Security's investigative arm, Homeland Security Investigations, is examining whether the nonprofit, identified only as "PFF", illegally funneled donor money to Al-Haq, a Palestinian group sanctioned by the United States in September, the New York Post reported. Two sources with direct knowledge told the Post that investigators are also probing whether PFF's organizers used opaque UK corporate structures to hide cross-border financial flows.
At the center of the alleged operation sits Bassema Yousef, a New York-born Democratic donor now living in London's Kensington neighborhood. One insider described her as "a well-connected operative who bridges the gap between State Department veterans, management consultants, and elite progressive spheres." Another called her the "linchpin" of PFF's fundraising apparatus.
Yousef did not return the Post's request for comment. Neither did the two men sources say helped her establish the fund: Yasser Shahin, a 49-year-old Palestinian-Australian motorsports magnate who has raced in the 24 Hours of Le Mans, and Basil Qunibi, an Austin, Texas-based buyout executive who runs Atom Investors and sits on the board of World Food Program USA.
Shahin directs Peregrine Corporation, described as a multibillion-dollar firm. He inherited a stake in an Australian retail giant from his late father, Fred Shahin. UK Companies House filings dated April 28, 2025, confirm his role in establishing PFF's London entities, a paper trail that puts a name on what sources say is an otherwise deliberately opaque structure.
Qunibi's involvement drew a carefully hedged response. A spokesperson from Prosek Partners, the communications firm handling his media inquiries, broadly denied the allegations but refused multiple requests from the Post for an on-the-record statement about his reported role in setting up PFF. DHS sources told the Post there is no suggestion that Atom Investors, Qunibi's firm, is itself involved with PFF.
Before founding Atom, Qunibi built Novus Partners, a portfolio intelligence platform used by major institutional investors. His professional biography reads like a Davos attendee list, World Food Program board member, private equity dealmaker, financial technology pioneer. None of that insulates him from questions about what PFF actually does with the money it raises.
Homeland Security Investigations exists to chase money that crosses borders illegally. The Congressional Research Service describes HSI's mandate as covering networks that exploit legitimate financial systems to conceal illicit transfers. HSI agents routinely target bulk cash smuggling, trade-based money laundering, and the financing of sanctioned organizations.
PFF checks several of those boxes, at least on paper. It is UK-based but also holds a nonprofit registration in Delaware, according to the IRS website. Sources allege the fund secretly finances anti-Israel messaging and bankrolls legal fights to defend pro-Palestinian activists. Its own website describes the organization as "a global foundation designed to pursue justice, equality, and freedom for all people, by building a virtuous cycle of capital, impact, resilience, and legitimacy."
That language is broad enough to mean almost anything, which may be the point. A person briefed on the matter put it more bluntly:
"This new organization operates in the shadows, and their actions should be brought into the public sphere."
A source familiar with the operation offered a more direct summary of PFF's purpose:
"A new fund set up by Arabs across the US, UK, and Australia has been built to take on Israel."
DHS itself would say nothing specific. A spokesperson gave the standard non-denial: "HSI does not comment on the existence or status of specific investigations, nor on investigative methods, intelligence sources, or potential enforcement actions." That boilerplate neither confirms nor kills the story. It does leave the principals without the cover of an official dismissal.
Sources allege that Husam Zomlot, the Palestinian ambassador to the United Kingdom, helped assemble PFF's key players. Diplomatic rules would prevent him from formally joining the board, but his alleged role as a connector raises separate questions about foreign-government involvement in a fund now under federal scrutiny.
When the Post reached Zomlot by phone on Friday, the exchange was brief. "I cannot answer any of these questions. Please reach out to my office," he said, and then hung up. He did not respond to follow-up messages about the DHS probe or the allegation that funds may have reached Al-Haq, the sanctioned Palestinian group. He also pointedly declined to dispute the names behind the fund.
Zomlot's refusal to deny is not a confirmation. But a diplomat who wanted to distance himself from a federal investigation would typically say so.
Bassema Yousef's public statements offer a window into the worldview driving PFF's alleged mission. When CBS correspondent Matt Gutman, who is Jewish, posted a short video in March showing air-raid sirens blaring in Tel Aviv, Yousef fired back on Threads. She dismissed the footage with two words: "No-one cares." She added that "Israel is too busy committing war crimes with US tax dollars" and called Tel Aviv "stolen Palestinian land." She also wrote that Gutman's network "is owned and run by Zionist (sic)."
Before moving to London, Yousef worked at Al Jazeera and consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton, and served at the International Rescue Committee, the global humanitarian organization led by former British Foreign Secretary David Miliband. She has donated to the campaigns of Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), a vocal congressional critic of Israel.
Yousef's professional résumé, spanning government-adjacent consulting, international media, and elite nonprofit circles, matches the insider description of someone who moves fluidly between worlds that do not normally overlap. That versatility, sources suggest, is precisely what makes her effective as a fundraiser operating across three continents.
The Post's reporting makes clear that Mayor Zohran Mamdani himself is not under scrutiny in the DHS probe. But the lines connecting PFF's alleged network to his political orbit are short and direct. Yousef is a close friend of Waleed Shahid, Mamdani's political communications adviser. She is also close to Zara Rahim, who served as a senior adviser on Mamdani's winning campaign in November.
City Hall did not return a request for comment.
The mayor has already faced a string of controversies that raise questions about the judgment and competence of the people in his circle. His housing adviser was found to owe $108,000 in unpaid rent and faced eviction as a squatter, an awkward look for an administration setting housing policy.
Mamdani also drew sharp criticism from victims' families after he skipped the 1993 World Trade Center bombing memorial for a trip to Washington, prompting families to say they wanted him nowhere near Ground Zero.
And his administration's credibility took another hit when he claimed credit for $104 million in delivery tips, even though the law passed before he took office.
It bears stating plainly: no one connected to PFF has been charged with a crime. The reported scrutiny does not indicate criminal wrongdoing. Federal investigations of this kind can run for months or years and may end without any charges at all.
But the scope of what is alleged, a $100 million fund spanning three countries, organized through opaque UK corporate entities, with potential financial links to a sanctioned organization, is not a minor compliance question. HSI does not open files on parking tickets. The unit exists to track illicit capital that crosses borders, and it is looking at PFF.
Several basic questions remain unanswered. What is PFF's full legal name? How was the $100 million figure calculated, and where did the money come from? What specific financial flows, if any, connected PFF funds to Al-Haq? And why have the fund's alleged principals chosen to operate, as one source put it, "in the shadows"?
Every principal named in the Post's reporting either declined to comment, hung up the phone, or sent a PR firm to issue a denial too vague to put on the record. That is not how people behave when they have nothing to hide.
When a hundred million dollars moves through shell entities across three countries and nobody wants to talk about where it goes, taxpayers and law enforcement are right to ask the question, even if the people writing the checks would rather they didn't.