Protecting Hezbollah's Drug Trafficking: The Iran Deal's additional costs that neither the Israeli PM nor American public knew.

The secret backstory of how Obama let Hezbollah off the hook

An ambitious U.S. task force targeting Hezbollah's billion-dollar criminal enterprise ran headlong into the White House's desire for a nuclear deal with Iran.

Josh Meyer..
Politico.com..
December '17..






PART I
A GLOBAL THREAT EMERGES
How Hezbollah turned to trafficking cocaine and laundering money through used cars to finance its expansion.

In its determination to secure a nuclear deal with Iran, the Obama administration derailed an ambitious law enforcement campaign targeting drug trafficking by the Iranian-backed terrorist group Hezbollah, even as it was funneling cocaine into the United States, according to a POLITICO investigation.

The campaign, dubbed Project Cassandra, was launched in 2008 after the Drug Enforcement Administration amassed evidence that Hezbollah had transformed itself from a Middle East-focused military and political organization into an international crime syndicate that some investigators believed was collecting $1 billion a year from drug and weapons trafficking, money laundering and other criminal activities.

Over the next eight years, agents working out of a top-secret DEA facility in Chantilly, Virginia, used wiretaps, undercover operations and informants to map Hezbollah’s illicit networks, with the help of 30 U.S. and foreign security agencies.

They followed cocaine shipments, some from Latin America to West Africa and on to Europe and the Middle East, and others through Venezuela and Mexico to the United States. They tracked the river of dirty cash as it was laundered by, among other tactics, buying American used cars and shipping them to Africa. And with the help of some key cooperating witnesses, the agents traced the conspiracy, they believed, to the innermost circle of Hezbollah and its state sponsors in Iran.

They followed cocaine shipments, tracked a river of dirty cash, and traced what they believed to be the innermost circle of Hezbollah and its state sponsors in Iran.

But as Project Cassandra reached higher into the hierarchy of the conspiracy, Obama administration officials threw an increasingly insurmountable series of roadblocks in its way, according to interviews with dozens of participants who in many cases spoke for the first time about events shrouded in secrecy, and a review of government documents and court records. When Project Cassandra leaders sought approval for some significant investigations, prosecutions, arrests and financial sanctions, officials at the Justice and Treasury departments delayed, hindered or rejected their requests.

(Continue to Full Story)

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Schanzer - Pious coke dealers?

Jonathan Schantzer..
Pundicity..
New York Post..
03 January '12..



It's hard to uphold a reputation as a devoutly religious terrorist group if you make millions selling cocaine. Just ask Hezbollah.

Last month, the US government filed suit against a number of American and Lebanese businesses that allegedly helped bankroll the Lebanese terrorist group. The civil indictment in Manhattan blew the lid off a vast criminal network that included money-laundering, cocaine deals and more — including 30 US car dealerships that helped the group launder cash.

As one investigator quipped, Hezbollah is the "Gambinos on steroids."

The indictment charges Hezbollah kingpin Ayman Joumaa with smuggling more than 100 tons of Colombian cocaine with the Mexican Zetas drug cartel, yielding hundreds of millions of dollars for the terror group. Indeed, the feds show that Hezbollah relies on a carefully constructed system of criminal enterprises from America to Africa to the Middle East.

Since its 1982 birth, Hezbollah has worked hard to portray itself as a "resistance" organization, fighting against the alleged injustices of Israel, the United States and others, earning it wide respect across the Middle East.

But today the group's operatives — at home and abroad — are thugs who profit from drugs, fraud and more. This contradiction could help erode support among Hezbollah's pious Shi'ite followers.

Deficiencies of a Ba’athist State

Farid Ghadry
Farid Ghadry Blog
23 December 09

Within the Syrian opposition, there is gayety in the air. It has nothing to do with the usual ingredients one witnesses in the normal course of our business such as international support or strong unity between the different groups but rather it have to do with Assad himself and the Ba’athist propaganda in general.

Confidence is like a shot in the arm of a sick patient but over confidence is like an overdose of narcotics. That’s exactly what the Syrian dissident community discerns today: An aplomb Assad stepping on landmines oblivious to the danger because of an overdose of self-induced confidence.

From observable and consistent signals that we, in the opposition, perceive either through planted regime operatives or through hired pens writing in Blogs, we can detect nuances with a long tale to tell. Not too dissimilar from a detective expert in reading body language to discern the truth from the lies.

In the Ba’athist ideology in general, much goes wrong and very little is successful when it comes to governance. Ba’athism is 90% propaganda and 10% truth. Up until the 80’s, to many Syrians the ‘67 war with Israel was won by Syria. The regime is continuously forced to respond with lies, half-truths, and total fabrications (i.e. Amb. Imad Mustapha) just so it enamors itself into believing of its right cause and more so to confuse the public-at-large into believing that the Ba’athist ideology is a successful socio-economic experiment.

In almost scientific fashion, as one compares the Syrian propaganda with the reality or the misinformation planted by western journalists — whose task is to shore-up the useful idiots in the Middle East — one can quickly read between the lines of every issued press release, interview, and newspaper articles. Sometimes, we get it wrong when the government actually tells a truth, which is very rare considering how easy it is for the problems to pile upon a society with little resources and whose aim is to control the population very much the epicenter of what renders a country successful.

(Read full article)
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