Project Cassandra was an overall effort led by the United States

Drug Enforcement Administration The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) is a Federal law enforcement in the United States, United States federal law enforcement agency under the U.S. Department of Justice tasked with combating illicit Illegal drug trade, drug trafficking a ...

(DEA) to undercut

Hezbollah Hezbollah ( ; , , ) is a Lebanese Shia Islamist political party and paramilitary group. Hezbollah's paramilitary wing is the Jihad Council, and its political wing is the Loyalty to the Resistance Bloc party in the Lebanese Parliament. I ...

funding from illicit drug sources in South America. The effort had two other investigation running simultaneously: Project Cedar and Project Titan. Launched in 2008, Project Cassandra was investigating the terrorist organization's funding. The DEA, Eurojust, and

Europol Europol, officially the European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Cooperation, is the law enforcement agency of the European Union (EU). Established in 1998, it is based in The Hague, Netherlands, and serves as the central hub for coordinating c ...

found that Hezbollah was increasingly involved with drug trafficking and organized crime as a method of funding its activities. The investigation was tracking how hundreds of millions of dollars were being laundered from North America through Europe and

West Africa West Africa, also known as Western Africa, is the westernmost region of Africa. The United Nations geoscheme for Africa#Western Africa, United Nations defines Western Africa as the 16 countries of Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, The Gambia, Gha ...

Lebanon Lebanon, officially the Republic of Lebanon, is a country in the Levant region of West Asia. Situated at the crossroads of the Mediterranean Basin and the Arabian Peninsula, it is bordered by Syria to the north and east, Israel to the south ...

and into Hezbollah's coffers.

"Members of Hezbollah established business relationships with South American drug cartels responsible for supplying large quantities of cocaine to the European and United States drug markets. An intricate network of money couriers collect and transport millions of euros in drug proceeds from Europe to the Middle East. The currency is then paid in Colombia to drug traffickers using the Hawala disbursement system. A large portion of the drug proceeds is laundered through Lebanon acilitated by the now-defunct Lebanese Canadian Bank and other Lebanese nationals">Lebanese_Canadian_Bank.html" ;"title="acilitated by the now-defunct Lebanese Canadian Bank">acilitated by the now-defunct Lebanese Canadian Bank and other Lebanese nationals where it is then used for the benefit of Hezbollah to purchase weapons."

Josh Meyer's investigative report, published by ''Politico'' in December 2017, described how, during the Presidency of Barack Obama, Obama administration, concerns regarding the Iran nuclear deal took precedence over the DEA project. This caused Project Cassandra to be halted, as it was approaching the upper echelons of Hezbollah's conspiracy, in order to seal a nuclear deal with Iran, even though Hezbollah was still funneling cocaine into the United States. A former Obama administration

Treasury A treasury is either *A government department related to finance and taxation, a finance ministry; in a business context, corporate treasury. *A place or location where treasure, such as currency or precious items are kept. These can be ...

official, Katherine Bauer, confirmed this during her testimony to the House Committee on Foreign Affairs in February 2017.

External references

* Hezbollah, l'enquête interdite

References

{{Iran–United States relations Iran–United States relations Obama administration controversies Hezbollah Money laundering

See also

External references

References