The conspiracy has run since at least 2004 and at times brought in as much as $200 million in a single month, according to court documents.
[Note: This article was originally posted on December 16th, 2011. The IFNM website was attacked by hackers and many articles are now gone from the archives. As a public service, IFNM is now reposting said articles.]
A Lebanese national who U.S. authorities say is the ringleader of a vast international drug smuggling ring with links to the militant group Hezbollah has been indicted on drug and money laundering charges after allegedly reaping more than $850 million in illicit profits.
The indictment was announced Tuesday in federal court in Alexandria against Ayman Joumaa, who is currently at large. It alleges he led a conspiracy that, among other activities, sold nearly 100 tons of Colombian cocaine to the Zetas drug cartel in Mexico between 2005 and 2007 that was ultimately smuggled into the United States.
The conspiracy has run since at least 2004 and at times brought in as much as $200 million in a single month, according to court documents.
Earlier this year, the Treasury Department designated Joumaa as a drug trafficker and said Hezbollah profited from his network.
Specifically, Treasury accused a major Lebanese bank, the Lebanese Canadian Bank, of being complicit in Joumaa’s money laundering and turning a blind eye to massive cash transactions. One of the members of Joumaa’s network is a suspected Hezbollah supporter, and bank managers had links to Hezbollah officials, according to the Treasury Department’s findings.
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