Posted on 10/09/2012 8:06:40 PM PDT by Milagros
Treasury Targets Major Money Laundering Network Linked to Drug Trafficker Ayman Joumaa and a Key Hizballah Supporter in South America 6/27/2012
WASHINGTON – The U.S. Department of the Treasury today designated four individuals and three entities involved in laundering the proceeds of narcotics trafficking for drug kingpin Ayman Joumaa. Treasury also designated a Colombia-based individual under its terrorism authority, Executive Order (E.O.) 13224, for directing Hizballah’s fundraising activities in the Americas. This individual was previously designated under the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act (Kingpin Act) for his role in narcotics-related money laundering. Today’s designations further expose Ayman Joumaa’s network as a major narcotics and money laundering enterprise that has reach throughout the Americas and the Middle East with links to Hizballah. As with the February 2011 action against Lebanese Canadian Bank, these actions again highlight Hizballah’s links to major South American narcotics money laundering organizations...
Ali Mohamad Saleh
Ali Mohamad Saleh, a Lebanese Colombian national, is also being designated today pursuant to E.O. 13224 as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist for acting for or on behalf of and providing financial, material, or technological support to Hizballah. Saleh is a key Hizballah facilitator who has directed and coordinated Hizballah activity in Colombia. He is a former Hizballah fighter with knowledge of Hizballah operations plans due to his contact with Hizballah authorities in Lebanon. As of July 2010, Saleh was a contact of Hizballah’s Foreign Relations Department and has maintained communication with suspected Hizballah operatives in Venezuela, Germany, Lebanon, and Saudi Arabia. Saleh was the acting leader of a Hizballah support cell in Maicao, Colombia that raised funds for transfer to Hizballah. In this role, Saleh solicited donations for Hizballah from business owners and residents. Saleh coordinated the transfer of checks and U.S. dollars by courier from Maicao via Venezuela to Hizballah in Lebanon. He was previously designated under the Kingpin Act on December 29, 2011, for his role as a Maicao based money launderer for the Cheaitelly/El Khansa criminal organization, which is linked to the Joumaa network. Saleh is the brother of Joumaa-network associate Kassem Mohamad Saleh, who was also named today under the Kingpin Act for his role in supporting Abbas Hussein Harb. ---
See more here at http://www.treasury.gov/press-center/press-releases/Pages/tg1624.aspx
Not another Bailout! Ah, Jeez!
Thanks Milagros.
...As of July 2010, Saleh was a contact of Hizballah’s Foreign Relations Department and has maintained communication with suspected Hizballah operatives in Venezuela, Germany, Lebanon, and Saudi Arabia. Saleh was the acting leader of a Hizballah support cell in Maicao, Colombia that raised funds for transfer to Hizballah. In this role, Saleh solicited donations for Hizballah from business owners and residents. Saleh coordinated the transfer of checks and U.S. dollars by courier from Maicao via Venezuela to Hizballah in Lebanon....
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/jun/8/hezbollah-moving-tons-of-cocaine-in-latin-america-/
Concerns about Hezbollah’s activities in Latin America have surged the
DEA’s announcement in February that top operatives from the group’s socalled Business Affairs Component, or BAC, “have established business
relationships” with South American drug cartels such as the Colombia-based
Oficina de Envigado, a crime syndicate “responsible for supplying large
quantities of cocaine to the European and United States drug markets.”
The DEA said several of the BAC’s Europe-based operatives had been arrested
on charges of trafficking drugs and laundering money from South America
to purchase weapons and finance the group’s military activities in Syria.The
agency described an intricate network of money couriers who collect and
transport millions of euros in drug proceeds from Europe to the Middle East.
“The currency is then paid in Colombia to drug traffickers,” it said, adding
that “a large portion of the drug proceeds was found to transit through
Lebanon, and a significant percentage of these proceeds are benefiting
terrorist organizations, namely Hezbollah.”
The DEA said seven countries, including France, Germany, Italy and
Belgium, were involved in an ongoing investigation. . .
“Drug cartels need middlemen, as well as commodity and service providers,
for the supply line and delivery to cartels in Colombia, Venezuela and Central
America,” Mr. Ottolenghi said. “They need assistance facilitating transit to West Africa before drugs cross the Sahara on their way to Western Europe
and enabling the producers, refiners and cartels to launder their revenues
and acquire the accessories for the trade in the process.”
https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/house-bill/2297
H.R.2297 - Hizballah International Financing Prevention Act of 2015
BCCI was used by Hezbollah. Since then, they’ve shifted to other banks using similar methods.
* * *
https://www.elibrary.imf.org/display/book/9781557755032/ch032.xml
. . .BCCI officials were accomplices in an array of crimes, including the laundering of criminal money, which, of course, facilitated drug trafficking. . .
they laundered and concealed millions of dollars in criminal money, including cocaine money belonging to leaders of the Medellín cartel and loot from corrupt public officials elsewhere. . .
* * *
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/lebanon-watch/are-lebanese-banks-todays-bcci-207200
. . .Three decades later, long after its formal demise, BCCI has faded from memory.
Potentially rising to take its place in infamy, however, are Lebanese banks such as the Bank of Lebanon (BDL, the nation’s central bank), the Société Générale de Banque au Liban (SGBL), and the Lebanese Canadian Bank (LCB)—which was recently absorbed by SGBL.
Back in 2011, the Obama administration had accused LCB of laundering money for an international cocaine ring with ties to Hezbollah. Later, LCB’s ledgers were opened to reveal the clandestine methods that Hezbollah uses to finance its illegal and terrorist operations.
As the New York Times’ Jo Becker reported, the bank and Hezbollah used an intricate global money laundering apparatus that enabled moving huge sums of money into the legitimate financial system in an end run around existing sanctions. Among the revelations, investigators found the link between Hezbollah and the South American cocaine trade. . . .
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