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Hizballah linked to spike in drug trafficking across the Middle East and Europe

Aug 9, 2020 12:00 pm By Christine Douglass-Williams

An “avalanche of little beige pills” of drugs that arrived at the Italian port of Salerno was discovered by police. Intelligence officials had reason to suspect Hizballah operatives.

Iran and its proxies, particularly Hizballah, have always been dangerous to Western interests and active in the drug trade. Hizballah has given Lebanon nothing but corruption and violence, leading it into decline and economic collapse long before there was any hint of coronavirus.

In June 2019, Hizballah was found by MI5 to be stockpiling tonnes of explosive materials (the same ammonium nitrate that was found in the Beirut explosion of several days ago) on the outskirts of London in a secret British bomb factory. And Israeli intelligence officials notified Berlin about Hizballah operatives who were operating in Germany ahead of that country’s recent ban on Hizballah. Germany was alerted that Hizballah had stashed explosive materials in warehouses there also, and had also established money laundering networks.

“Hezbollah operatives seen behind spike in drug trafficking, analysts say,” by Joby Warrick and Souad Mekhennet, Washington Post, August 4, 2020:

At first glance, the shipping trailers that arrived at the Italian port of Salerno appeared to contain only paper, rolled up on giant industrial spools as tall as a man. But when an investigator sliced into one of the rolls with an electric saw, he unleashed an avalanche of little beige pills.

Police found more caches inside other paper rolls, and by the time the search ended on July 1, customs agents had recovered 84 million tablets of the amphetamine Captagon. It was a record haul, worth an estimated $1.1 billion, and even more jarring was the suspect initially named by police as the likely source: the Islamic State.

Yet, within days, suspicions began to shift toward different Middle Eastern groups. Intelligence officials concluded that the drugs did originate in Syria, but in factories located in areas controlled by President Bashar al-Assad’s government. The amphetamines departed Syria from Latakia, a coastal city with dedicated Iranian port facilities, and a known hub for smuggling operations by Tehran’s ally, Hezbollah.

Italian police learned of the shipment because they happened to be monitoring the communications of a local crime family that was supposed to pick up the drugs, the authorities in Italy said.

Whether Hezbollah was directly involved in the Italian shipment is not yet known, but investigators say the episode fits a pattern of recent drug cases in the Middle East and Europe linked to the powerful Lebanese militia. Facing extreme financial pressures because of U.S. sanctions, the coronavirus pandemic and Lebanon’s economic collapse, Hezbollah appears to be growing increasingly reliant on criminal enterprises, including drug smuggling, to finance its operations, U.S. and Middle Eastern analysts said.

Law enforcement officials have linked Hezbollah to a string of major drug seizures, in locations ranging from the empty desert along the Syria-Jordan border to urban centers in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, to central and southern Europe….

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Filed Under: European Union, Featured, Hizballah, Italy Tagged With: Captagon, Salerno


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Comments

  1. Kesselman says

    Aug 9, 2020 at 2:58 pm

    Hezbollah is a proven gangster syndicate besides its label as a terrorist entity. They engage in all activities one can designate criminals.—Go after their drug trafficking, money-laundering, stockpiling of ammo, etc. A viable option is also the physical removal of chief Hassan.

  2. gravenimage says

    Aug 9, 2020 at 5:05 pm

    Hizballah linked to spike in drug trafficking across the Middle East and Europe
    ……………….

    And this will mostly go to funding more Jihad terror.

    Another reason to just say no…

  3. Soundaryambha says

    Aug 10, 2020 at 3:57 am

    This morning news ( India) says afghanis coming via iran to Mumbai airport have been nabbed carrying 191kgs of drug. Packed in long pipes painted green to look like bamboo & the criminals claimed they were ”Ayurvedic medicines”.

    • gravenimage says

      Aug 10, 2020 at 10:37 pm

      I’m not surprised.

  4. Walter Sieruk says

    Aug 10, 2020 at 10:50 am

    Hezbollah drug dealing to money to further finance there murderous bombing attacks as well as advance drug harm among the Westerners of Europe is a highly despicable and insidious evil activity of that Muslim terrorist organization.

    One of the explanation as to how such totally unconscionable, actions of the Hezbollah jihadists is that they are engaging in the Islamic doctrine of “Muruna” which is the dogma of Islam that teaches committing evil for the greater good is a noble part of the jihad for Islam.

    This is, in essence, the same type of “philosophy” that the communists had gone by in the twentieth century. That it’s a “good thing “ to commit many evils to obtain a “worker’s paradise.” Likewise, during World War II even the Nazis had this line of thinking.” To express, as in to illustrate this idea, even more, is by using a twenty-first century movie. Near the end of this movie, just before the final defeat of the super-arch –villain General Zod , that super villain said “No matter how brutal and deadly I was I did it for the greater good.” That is the common mindset of many villains including those of Hezbollah .

    • gravenimage says

      Aug 10, 2020 at 10:40 pm

      Muslims have never had a problem with selling drugs to the “filthy Infidels”.

  5. jramsix says

    Aug 10, 2020 at 10:58 am

    Remember when Obama made a deal with them and allowed them to sell drugs here in the USA in exchange for their help with his Iran Deal? Yes, he shut down a 2 year investigation & gave them a carte blanch get out of jail card. Obama & his administration, the most corrupt government leaders ever.

  6. OLD GUY says

    Aug 10, 2020 at 8:19 pm

    Drug sales are good and a quick buck that will fund allot of weapons and terrorist operations world wide. Illegal drug use is bad for everyone.

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