Hezbollah’s wallet - Ana Maria Luca - Daily Star

Brazil, Paraguay, Mexico, Sierra Leone, Angola, Congo, Uganda, South Africa, Southeast Asia and the United States of America. This is not a list of vacation destinations, but locations where large numbers of Lebanese Shia Hezbollah supporters have settled, causing US government agencies to keep a close eye on them to see if they are sending money to the party, which America has considered a terrorist organization since 1999.

For over a decade US anti-terrorism agencies have been trying to connect Hezbollah to drug smuggling rings in Colombia, Mexico and Venezuela; the illegal weapons trade in the US, Southeast Asia and Europe; blood diamond smuggling in Africa; and even with al Qaida’s international activities.

Tens of Lebanese Shia have been arrested in the past decade for illegal activities, and several businessmen were blacklisted by the US Department of Treasury and authorities in West Africa and Latin America.

“After 2006 it became clear that Hezbollah has been running its businesses and has its clients in the Shia community who contribute financially,” said Hares Sleiman, professor at the Lebanese University and an expert in the Shia community. “They invest and manage these investments, but they also have partnerships with businessmen who have their own fixed businesses,” he said.

According to Sleiman, Hezbollah started building its business empire after 2002, when the Iranian Revolutionary Guards started investing in the Gulf. Hezbollah followed the example, contacting businessmen and building partnerships, increasing its capital and investing in hotels, the car trade, clothes manufacturing and wholesale.  “This move was also accompanied by Hezbollah members and supporters—who were not businessmen to start with—opening new businesses, investments and institutions in Lebanon and abroad, in places such as Africa and the Gulf,” Sleiman explained. After the 2006 July War, the phenomenon increased. 

Lokman Slim, head of the NGO Hayya Bina (Let’s Go), told NOW Lebanon that the money coming from expatriates and from business investments is just a portion of Hezbollah’s finances. “There is first the money coming from Iran directly, which is used for military and security, and there is the domestic network income… which is mainly the money of the Lebanese state channeled through municipalities controlled by the party,” he said. “And there is the portion coming from the Shia diaspora.” While the first two sources are very difficult for outside agencies to control and cut, the third one is much more vulnerable.

The money the party earns is used for extra investments, rebuilding South Lebanon, and launching and maintaining social projects necessary for the party’s social welfare machine.

The latest businessmen to be blacklisted are the three brothers from the Tajideen family—Kassem, Hussein and Ali—who own a commercial and real estate empire in several countries in West Africa and Lebanon; as well as Bilal Mohsen Wehbe, who allegedly raised $500,000 for Hezbollah from Lebanese businessmen in the infamous tri-border area (TBA) between Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay. Other businesses were blacklisted in 2006, such as companies belonging to Assad Ahmad Barakat, also located in the TBA.

Moussa Ali Hamdan, 38, was arrested in June 2010 in the TBA city of Ciudad del Este for allegedly raising funds for Hezbollah and was extradited to the US in 2011. Hamdan was already wanted in Pennsylvania for money laundering, using counterfeit currency, passport forgery and exporting stolen laptops, cell phones and cars.

In addition, in October 2008, US and Colombian law enforcement agencies announced the break-up of a drug-trafficking ring that channeled part of its profits to Hezbollah.

Some Lebanese nationals allegedly linked to the infamous Mexican drug cartels were arrested in 2010. For example, Hezbollah member Jamil Nasr was arrested in 2010 in Tijuana, Mexico, for allegedly trying to establish a network of supporters in South America. 

But experts in Lebanon say that blacklisting and even terminating Hezbollah supporters’ businesses does not really impact the party’s coffers.

“[Being blacklisted and pursued by the US Department of Treasury] makes life complicated in the Resistance and affects Hezbollah’s credibility more than it impacts it financially,” said Slim. “There is little financial impact, in fact, on Hezbollah’s bankrolls, but [blacklisting these companies] deepens the lack of confidence that some businessmen in the diaspora have in Hezbollah. It makes them wonder what kind of protection they are provided with by the Resistance.” 

Sleiman notes that Hezbollah’s links to crime also affects the credibility of the Shia business community as a whole. “We have to differentiate between the Shia expatriate businessmen and Hezbollah’s foreign investments,” he said. “There are many Shia businessmen who do not support Hezbollah, and there were also many in Africa, the Gulf and in South America before Hezbollah was founded. There is this confusion or wrong association in the West that every Shia is a supporter of Hezbollah.” 

“The Shia diaspora in Africa and South America is considered [a] supporter of the Resistance. When the expatriate sector is targeted, the Shia community will not be so happy because without the [expatriates] the South would not have developed socially, economically, or politically, and striking the expatriate sector because of its association with Hezbollah will influence the Shia community,” Sleiman said.