| Author | Message | | Cowboy | | Posted: Fri Nov 09, 2007 6:23 am Post subject: Hezbollah Financing Through Criminal Activity |
| Hezbollah Financing Through Criminal Activity
By Matthew Levitt
http://counterterrorismblog.org/2007/11/hezbollah_financing_through_cr.php
A two-year counterterrorism and drug investigation culminated earlier this week with the arrest of a dozen individuals in Los Angeles. Authorities reportedly seized 30 kilograms of cocaine and counterfeit merchandise valued at hundreds of thousands of dollars. According to the LA Times, at least one of the suspects is tied to Hezbollah and was referenced - though not by name - in 2005 congressional testimony by an official with the LA County Sheriff’s Department.
I testified at that hearing as well. As I noted then, Hezbollah depends on a wide variety of criminal enterprises, ranging from smuggling to fraud to drug trade to diamond trade in regions across the world, including North America, South America, and the Middle East, to raise money to support Hezbollah activities.
In the United States, law enforcement officials are investigating a variety of criminal enterprises suspected of funding Middle Eastern terrorist groups, including the stealing and reselling of baby formula, food stamp fraud, and scams involving grocery coupons, welfare claims, credit cards, and even unlicensed t-shirts sales. U.S. officials believe "a substantial portion" of the estimated millions of dollars raised by Middle Eastern terrorist groups comes from the $20 million to $30 million annually brought in by the illicit scam industry in America. A senior U.S. law enforcement official concluded, "There is a significant amount of money moved out of the United States attributed to fraud that goes to terrorism."
Hezbollah and other terrorist groups also traffic narcotics in North America to fund their activities back in the Middle East. A Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) investigation into a pseudoephedrine smuggling scam in the American Midwest led investigators as far as Jordan, Yemen, Lebanon, and other Middle Eastern countries, including bank accounts tied to Hezbollah and Hamas. DEA chief Asa Hutchinson confirmed, "a significant portion of some of the sales are sent to the Middle East to benefit terrorist organizations."
Long before al Qaeda was suspected of converting cash into easily transportable commodities like diamonds, Hezbollah learned to raise significant funds by dealing in so-called 'conflict diamonds' in Sierra Leone, Liberia , and Congo.
The full testimony can be found here. | |  | | Cowboy | | Posted: Thu Nov 27, 2008 7:28 am Post subject: |
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