U.S. Moves Against Hezbollah 'Cartel'
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By JAY SOLOMON
WASHINGTON—The Obama administration charged Hezbollah
with operating like an international drug cartel and blacklisted two Lebanese
money-exchange houses for allegedly moving tens of millions of dollars of drug
profit through the U.S. financial system on behalf of the militant group.
The Treasury Department's action Tuesday marked the
latest salvo in a two-year U.S. government campaign against Hezbollah's alleged
drug-trafficking activities.
U.S. officials alleged that Hezbollah is using proceeds
from this narcotics trade to fund international terrorist activities and to
bolster the forces of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in their fight against a
widening political rebellion.
U.S. officials also said Hezbollah is increasingly
reverting to illicit trade to offset diminished funding coming from Iran, the
organization's closest ally.
"Hezbollah is operating like a major drug cartel," said
Derek Maltz, a special agent for the Drug Enforcement Administration, who is
overseeing the U.S. probe into Hezbollah. "These proceeds are funding violence
against Americans."
Bulgaria's Interior Ministry concluded that Hezbollah
operatives conducted last year's bombing of a tourism bus at a Black Sea resort
that killed five Israeli nationals. The European Union is considering imposing
broadsanctions on Hezbollah as a result.
Hezbollah has repeatedly denied any involvement in
narcotics trafficking or terrorism. It has accused the U.S. of spreading
propaganda to discredit the Lebanese organization.
The Treasury Department in 2011 named the Beirut-based
Lebanese Canadian Bank as a major facilitator for a drug-trafficking scheme it
said originated in Latin America and West Africa but involved laundering
proceeds through the U.S. financial system via the purchases of used cars.
Hezbollah received much of the profit from this illicit
business, U.S. officials charged.
In response to the U.S. charges, the Lebanese Canadian
Bank was shut by Beirut's financial regulators. But Treasury and DEA officials
said Tuesday that two money-exchange houses replaced the bank in conducting
illegal wire payments through the U.S. financial system on behalf of Hezbollah
and a Lebanese drug trafficker who U.S. officials allege to be coordinating with
the militant group.
The alleged trafficker, Ayman Joumaa, is a joint
Lebanese and Colombian national who the U.S. charges with trafficking tens of
thousands of kilograms of cocaine from Colombia to Europe, West Africa and Latin
America. The U.S. believes he works with both Hezbollah and the Mexican drug
cartel, Los Zetas. Attempts to reach him in recent years have been unsuccessful.
U.S. officials are particularly worried about the
operations of money exchange houses in Lebanon and the broader Middle East
because of their focus on moving bulk cash and the fact they are less regulated
than banks.
One of the exchange houses, Kassem Rmeiti & Co. for
Exchange, moved nearly $30 million in drug proceeds through the U.S. since 2008,
according to Treasury and DEA officials. The company's owner, Haitham Rmeiti,
has also emerged as "a key facilitator for wiring money and transferring
Hezbollah funds," the Treasury and DEA said.
The second exchange, Halawi Exchange Co., meanwhile, was
facilitating the shipment of more than $220 million of used cars, which
originated in the U.S., into the West African country of Benin last year as part
of the same drug-trafficking operation, U.S. officials alleged.
"Following Treasury's action against the Lebanese
Canadian Bank, the Joumaa narcotics network turned to Rmeiti Exchange and Halawi
Exchange to handle its money-laundering needs," said David Cohen, the Treasury Department's top
counter-terrorism official.
Attempts to reach officials at the Halawi and Rmeiti
exchange houses Tuesday in Beirut were unsuccessful.
The U.S. Treasury named both exchange houses as "primary
money laundering concerns" under the U.S. Patriot Act. This determination could
result in both firms being banned from the U.S. financial system, and their
dollar-based assets frozen, unless they provide evidence to Treasury over the
next 120 days to reverse the decision.
Lebanon's central bank governor, Riad Salameh, said in
an interview Tuesday that Beirut's financial regulators had independently been
scrutinizing the businesses of both exchange houses.
Rmeiti's case is being handled by Lebanon's general
prosecutor, Mr. Salameh said, while Halawi's business is being monitored by the
central bank's Special Investigation Commission.
"We are doing, first of all, the oversight on our own
initiative because there are rules and laws and regulations that the
money-exchange houses need to abide with," Mr. Salameh said. "We are cooperating
and will continue to cooperate in a sincere and firm way with the U.S.
Treasury."
Lebanon has emerged as a key, and complicated, front in
the U.S.'s financial war against Iran, Syria and Hezbollah—allies who refer to
themselves as being part of a "resistance axis" against the U.S. and Israel.
Hezbollah have served in recent Lebanese governments and
is the most powerful military actor in Lebanon. But the U.S. has also worked
closely with Lebanon's army, police and financial regulators to try to contain
Hezbollah's influence in Beirut and to curtail Iranian and Syrian clout in
Lebanon.
U.S. officials have pressed Mr. Salameh in recent years
to move aggressively against Hezbollah, but they have also been wary about
upsetting Lebanon's banking system, which has historically been one of the Arab
world's most important.
Mr. Cohen on Tuesday stressed that the Treasury's action
against the exchange houses "wasn't an indictment of the Lebanese financial
system as a whole."
Still, he stressed that the Treasury had "concerns about
the adequacy of the supervision" of Lebanon's money-change houses.
Mr. Salameh said Lebanon has roughly 400 such exchange
houses that conducted $1.5 billion in transactions last year. Lebanon's central
bank governor said his government has increased the capital requirement for
these firms in recent years and required new training guidelines for their
staff.
"We are always following up on exchange houses," he
said.
Write to Jay Solomon at jay.solomon@wsj.com
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