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International operation halts Hezbollah drugs ring raising funds for terror
The United States Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) yesterday announced that an operation involving seven countries has thwarted a Hezbollah ring in Europe, which had been selling cocaine and laundering the profits to fund the group’s terror activities.
The DEA said that an unspecified number of arrests were made in France, with the help of authorities in France, Belgium, Germany and Italy among others. The Hezbollah cell was responsible for trafficking cocaine worth millions of pounds to the United States and Europe and laundered the money through a Lebanese front company. The drugs cell was apparently established by infamous Hezbollah terrorist Imad Mughniyeh, who was killed in a bomb blast in 2008, which many assume was carried out by Israel. The DEA said that the group had close links with drug cartels in South America.
Speaking yesterday, DEA Acting Deputy Administrator Jack Riley commented that, “These drug trafficking and money laundering schemes… provide a revenue and weapons stream for an international terrorist organisation [Hezbollah] responsible for devastating terror attacks around the world.” In particular, he said that, “These proceeds are used to purchase weapons for Hezbollah for its activities in Syria.” Describing their efforts to combat such activities as “relentless” Riley said “DEA and our partners will continue to dismantle networks who exploit the nexus between drugs and terror using all available law enforcement mechanisms.”
Although the DEA did not specify how many arrests were made, they included 45-year-old Mohamad Noureddine, thought to be a major Hezbollah operative in Europe. Adam J. Szubin, the acting US under-secretary for terrorism and financial intelligence said that Hezbollah needed people like Noureddine “to launder criminal proceeds for use in terrorism and political destabilisation.”
Hezbollah has used its European network to launch attacks against Israelis. Most notably, a bus bomb in the Bulgarian resort of Burgas killed five Israeli tourists in 2012. Meanwhile, last year a Cypriot court sentenced a Hezbollah operative planning an attack on Israeli interests on the island.