Project Cassandra was an effort led by the United States

Drug Enforcement Administration The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA; ) is a United States federal law enforcement agency under the U.S. Department of Justice tasked with combating drug trafficking and distribution within the U.S. It is the lead agency for domestic en ...

(DEA) to undercut Hezbollah funding from illicit drug sources in South America. Launched in 2007, the project was investigating the terrorist organization's funding. The DEA,

Eurojust Eurojust is an agency of the European Union (EU) dealing with judicial co-operation in criminal matters among agencies of the member states. It is seated in The Hague, Netherlands. Established in 2002, it was created to improve handling of seriou ...

, and Europol 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 or Western Africa is the westernmost region of Africa. The United Nations defines Western Africa as the 16 countries of Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Mali, M ...

Lebanon Lebanon ( , ar, لُبْنَان, translit=lubnān, ), officially the Republic of Lebanon () or the Lebanese Republic, is a country in Western Asia. It is located between Syria to Lebanon–Syria border, the north and east and Israel to Blue ...

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.html" ;"title="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">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. *A place or location where treasure, such as currency or precious items are kept. These can be state or royal property, church treasure or i ...

official, Katherine Bauer, confirmed this during her testimony to the

House Committee on Foreign Affairs The United States House Committee on Foreign Affairs, also known as the House Foreign Affairs Committee, is a standing committee of the U.S. House of Representatives with jurisdiction over bills and investigations concerning the foreign affairs o ...

in February 2017.

References

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

See also

References