Iran, drugs, real estate and… meat: this is the financial empire built by Nasrallah

83 tons of explosives, landed with precise timing by Israeli Air Force jets directly on Hezbollah’s headquarters in the heart of central Beirut’s Dahieh district, destroyed the terrorist organization’s entire central command within seconds.

“The IDF has eliminated Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of the Hezbollah terrorist organization and one of its founders, along with Ali Karaki, the commander of Hezbollah’s Southern Front, and other Hezbollah commanders,” the IDF spokesperson announced on Saturday – with which he issued the official stamp. about the departure from the scene of one of the most bitter, difficult and sophisticated enemies Israel has known.

Nasrallah, who is considered one of the founders of the organization, which he founded sometime in the early 1980s together with Lebanese Shia and Iranian factors, led Hezbollah for more than thirty years. Even in his early years with the organization, at just 22 years old, he was appointed to the important position of in charge of the “Bekaa” area and quickly rose through the ranks.

Just three years later, he became deputy chairman of the Beirut Council, at the time one of the three branches of the militia, and quickly became the organizational and military head of the city, in addition to his second hat – member of the political power of the organization. desk. In 1987 he became ‘Head of the Executive Council’ and by virtue of this served as a member of the organization’s Supreme Council.

The important turning point in his life came in the early 1990s. In 1992, the then Secretary General of Hezbollah said Abbas al-Musawiwas assassinated by the IDF – and so just ten years after the organization’s founding, at just 32 years old, Nasrallah was appointed to lead the organization.

For 32 years, he was the key decision-maker and sole approver of strategic processes, during which the Shia extremist leader transformed the organization from a small, almost negligible movement in global terms, into one of the deadliest, most powerful – and even the richest terrorist organizations in the world.

Hundreds of millions courtesy of the Iranian patron

Since we first published the list of the richest terrorist organizations in the world in Forbes Israel, the terrorist organization Hezbollah has been at the top of the rankings for ten years, with revenues exceeding the threshold of one billion dollars per year. Iran, which has invested a cumulative sum of tens of billions of dollars in the ‘Hezbollah project’ for more than three decades, has been the organization’s main and most important source of capital over the years. According to the research we published, the budget that the Quds Force allocates to Hezbollah is estimated at $700 to $800 million per year – depending on the size of the sanctions wrapped around the ayatollahs’ regime’s neck and, of course, the price of oil , which is responsible for about 80% of Iran’s income.

The main victim of the toxic connection between Iran and Hezbollah is Lebanon itself. In recent years, the economic and political situation has deteriorated, and as a mirror image, Hezbollah’s influence on the country and Iran’s hold on it have strengthened.

As Lebanon became more polarized, weaker and more dependent, Nasrallah’s hold on Shiite strongholds strengthened – and with it Iran’s influence. Oil shipments and aid from Iran further strengthened Nasrallah’s position among the Shia population. The plight of the Lebanese people, who continue to suffer from shortages of basic products such as food, medicine and fuel, was exploited by Hezbollah and Iran to bring under their protection as many needy Lebanese citizens as possible – especially among the Shia population. It started with a supportive nursing, educational, and economic network for the needy population, continued to create existential dependency, and ultimately to the recruitment of that population to Hezbollah.

“Hezbollah has established a state within a state. ‘Hezbollahstan’ – the entire area from Beirut to the Israeli border and in the Bekaa on the Syrian border is under its control,” Major General (Res.) Amos Gilad explained in a special interview with Forbes Israel. “In this area, Hezbollah provides civilian services where the state fails, deliberately to increase its influence.”

And so, as the economy collapses, the currency crashes and inflation erodes wages and pushes half the Lebanese population below the poverty line, Hezbollah has continued to benefit in recent years from huge budgets flowing directly from Iran into the treasury. According to Israeli intelligence sources, Iran has funneled about $750 million a year into the organization.

Together with drug cartels

But this is not Hezbollah’s only source of capital. For more than thirty years, Nasrallah has been able to “diversify the risks” and tap additional sources of financing with great sophistication. Hezbollah’s activities in the Latin American drug industry began in the early 1980s but have accelerated since 2006.

Under the leadership of Imad Mughniyeh – Nasrallah’s close friend, and who served for many years as ‘Hezbollah’s chief of staff’ until his assassination – close cooperation was established between activists and supporters of the organization in the large Shia-Lebanese diaspora in South America. and members of the largest and most powerful drug cartels in the world. A sophisticated network that has grown and developed now transports hundreds of tons of drugs to Europe and North America every year and is responsible for money laundering in cycles estimated at billions of dollars.

In the service of and in close cooperation with drug cartels and crime families, Hezbollah’s enablers operate across the continent – ​​from the tri-border area of ​​Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay, through Colombia to Venezuela, which is under the direct influence of the president. Nicolas Maduro, a central artery in the global drug route. Over the past decade, the organization has also deepened its presence in Mexico, where it not only operates intensively in drug trafficking and large-scale money laundering for major crime families, but also in transferring the extensive knowledge it has accumulated over the years. when preparing explosive charges and digging tunnels.

To this day, the narco-terrorist network rakes in billions of dollars a year, from which Hezbollah members cut off fat coupons. “Some of the money Hezbollah launders is the product of its own illegal activities, but most of it comes from the cartels, which pay the organization for money laundering and drug trafficking,” said Dr. Emanuele Ottolenghi, a senior research fellow at the American Research Institute. FDD, Forbes Israel told in an interview.

He said it is difficult to quantify the exact amount the cartels are paying, “but it is significant,” he says. According to existing estimates, Hezbollah money launderers charge a commission ranging from 7% to 15%, and based on just one scheme discovered by the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) in 2011, this amount is approximately $14 up to $30 million per month and hundreds of dollars. of millions of dollars per year. So even after “deducting costs,” Hezbollah is left with a large share of the enormous drug industry, which rakes in some $500 billion annually.

Hezbollah bank

Over the years, Hezbollah has built up a financial arm – controlling an economic empire that launders and generates enormous flows of money and economic activity for the country. This activity involves disguised charities and institutions located throughout the world, generating revenues worth approximately $100 million per year.

Within all this, Hezbollah has for many years operated a sophisticated global money laundering network, which is deeply intertwined with its global business activities: real estate companies in Europe, used car agencies in the US and even kosher companies for Brazil’s booming halal industry. market for the meat industry.

In addition, the organization’s facilitators are involved in counterfeiting products and cash, trading in blood diamonds, arms trafficking, trafficking in minerals from pirate mines, smuggling luxury products – and as mentioned, drug trafficking, mainly heroin and cocaine, which Hezbollah generates hundreds of millions of euros. dollars per year.

“They have a broad infrastructure of facilitators all over the world. Wherever there is a Shia community, there is Hezbollah,” former Mossad official Uzi Shaya told Forbes Israel in an exclusive interview. “A large part of this circle is criminal and includes facilitators involved in drug trafficking, human trafficking, rare animals, diamonds or pirate trade in natural resources. This infrastructure supports Hezbollah both financially and operationally.”