Faced with a shortage of money, Hezbollah is trying to boost the sale of illegal drugs in Europe

Hezbollah is trying to quickly boost illegal drug sales in Europe, former US officials tell VOA, as the Iran-backed Lebanese militia reels from a weeks-long Israeli offensive that has destroyed its main sources of cash in Lebanon and dislocated.

However, international law enforcement officials tell VOA that the US-designated terror group faces some challenges as it ramps up its European drug trafficking operations.

According to American and Lebanese sources who spoke to VOA earlier this month, Hezbollah has entered a financial crisis since Israel began escalating its attacks on the group’s leadership and infrastructure in Lebanon in late September.

These attacks include Sunday’s Israeli airstrikes on branches of Hezbollah’s quasi-banking institution Al-Qard Al-Hassan in Hezbollah-dominated parts of Lebanon, including the southern stronghold of Beirut.

The Israeli offensive follows 11 months of limiting responses to Hezbollah attacks on the north of the country in support of the Iran-backed terrorist group Hamas, which invaded southern Israel from Gaza last October and sparked the year-long old war in the Palestinian territory.

The former US officials, who spoke exclusively to VOA about Hezbollah’s international drug trafficking activities, said their sources in Europe this month reported an increased interest by Hezbollah in selling illegal drugs on the continent.

According to the US Congressional Research Service, Hezbollah operates a global criminal-financial network, with hubs in Africa and Latin America.

The European Union Law Enforcement Cooperation Agency Europol said in a 2022 report that Hezbollah also uses the EU as a “base for fundraising, recruitment and criminal activities from which they derive significant profits.”

Hezbollah has built a “network of collaborators” in the EU, suspected of “managing the transport and distribution of illicit drugs… and conducting professional money laundering operations,” the Europol report said.

“I have spoken to several European-based human traffickers who have been arrested and recruited as law enforcement sources in the past and are now back on the streets,” said David Asher, a former US Department of Defense and State Department official who focused on Hezbollah’s global drug trade. and money laundering networks, in an interview on October 9.

“They told me that they are being contacted to arrange the illicit drug shipments on behalf of Hezbollah-affiliated actors as quickly as possible,” Asher said.

“It doesn’t mean there is an increase in the number of narcotics on the streets yet, but I would expect this because Hezbollah’s money is at risk in Lebanon, and they have to raise more illegally.”

Thomas Cindric, a retired special agent in charge of the U.S. Department of Justice’s Drug Enforcement Administration who served at the DEA from 1996 to 2018, told VOA on Monday that people involved in the illegal drug trade have also seen him report an increase in Hezbollah-related reported drug trafficking. activity in Europe in the last 10 days.

An international law enforcement official who spoke to VOA last Friday and requested anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter said organized crime groups linked to Hezbollah will “undoubtedly try to increase their activities” because Hezbollah is under financial pressure.

“If you get hit like Hezbollah is getting hit now by the Israelis, the only way you can make money exponentially quickly is with illegal drugs,” Cindric said.

VOA contacted the U.S. Departments of Justice and Homeland Security last week to ask if they had made similar comments about Hezbollah, but received no response.

The Biden administration has imposed multiple rounds of sanctions on individuals and organizations linked to Hezbollah as part of an effort to disrupt the group’s illicit revenue-generating international activities and dismantle its financial network.

Selling illegal drugs in Europe is a quick way for Hezbollah to raise money because of ample supply and demand, said Hans-Jakob Schindler, senior director of the Counter Extremism Project, a U.S.-German nonprofit policy organization.

“Europe is the largest consumer of cocaine in the world, bigger than the United States, so the demand is there,” said Schindler, a former U.N. Security Council member and German government official.

On the supply side, Schindler said Hezbollah has built relationships with South American drug cartels that ship their illicit shipments to West Africa, from where they are transported first to the northern coast of Africa and then to the southern coast of Europe.

“Unlike the drug trade, Hezbollah’s other profitable ventures are not easy to ramp up quickly,” Schindler said.

Hezbollah-linked companies engaged in commercial activities are unlikely to be able to double their profits within days, while the group would also find it difficult to quickly increase donations to and extortion from the Lebanese diaspora, he said.

Quentin Mugg, a French police officer with Europol and author of the French book “Argent Sale” (Dirty Money) about his work in the fight against organized crime, told VOA in an interview on Friday that a plan by Hezbollah to crack down on drug trafficking in Europe acceleration is plausible.

“I know from previous cases that criminals of Lebanese or Lebanese descent in Europe with clear ties to Hezbollah laundered the proceeds of illegal drug sales and channeled part of the profits to Hezbollah,” Mugg said.

“So we know that Hezbollah benefited from this money laundering in a structured way. With that in mind, it makes sense to expedite this activity,” he said.

The international law enforcement official who spoke to VOA said one challenge Hezbollah faces in boosting the laundering of proceeds from the sale of illicit drugs is competition from other organized crime groups operating on the continent.

“It is quite competitive there, so Hezbollah may not be successful,” the official said.

Mugg said Hezbollah and its associates will also face aggressive police action from Europol, which focuses on encrypted communications to reveal the identities of major traffickers.

“Seizures of illegal drugs have increased dramatically in recent years. So European law enforcement activities are really flourishing,” he said.