The arrest of Barakat, a major financial operator of group, was made possible thanks to the partnership of Argentina, Paraguay and Brazil.

• In January 2018 the Trump Administration reconstituted a research unit on Hezbollah and in October labeled group a transnational criminal organization

• The arrival to the presidency of Abdo Benítez in Asunción and Jair Bolsonaro in Brasilia has activated action against drug trafficking, money laundering and smuggling in the country. area

• Assad Ahmad Barakat and some 15 members of his clan were arrested throughout 2018, in a "significant milestone" in the action against Hezbollah in Latin America

Friendship Bridge, linking the Paraguayan city of Ciudad del Este with the Brazilian city of Foz de Iguazu [BienvenidoaParaguay.com].

report SRA 2019 / Lisa Cubías[PDF Version] [PDF Version].

APRIL 2019-Pressure actions on Hezbollah have increased significantly in the Western Hemisphere in the last year. Both the United States and the countries of the Triple Border - border area between Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay, which shelters a dense network of financing of the organization - have taken some measures that, with different Degree of governmental commitment, have led to the arrest of several people and the disruption of their money laundering Structures .

In the case of the U.S., the change in the Administration meant a change in policy. Some testimonies of Obama-era officials have suggested that the previous presidency had a soft attention regarding the activities in the continent by Hezbollah, a Lebanese Shiite organization with a double political and military facet. The purpose of this would have been to avoid inconveniences in the denuclearization negotiation with Iran, one of the most notorious pillars of support of the organization. Thus, the Obama Administration would have hindered efforts to implement the "project Cassandra", developed by the DEA, the U.S. anti-drug agency, to discover the sources of financing that Hezbollah obtains in Latin America for its illicit activities.

The "project Cassandra", widely exposed by Politico in late 2017, bore some fruit despite that alleged interference, denied by other Obama Administration officials. In March 2017, Kassim Tajideen, a major financier of the terrorist organization, was captured and pleaded guilty in December 2018. In June 2017, Paraguayan national, Ali Issa Chamas, was extradited to the U.S. to face charges of conspiracy to traffic drugs.

The change in the White House, in any case, led to the fact that after the dismantling of some research teams that had taken place the Trump Administration reinstated the effort against Hezbollah. Thus, in January 2018 the department of Justice announced the creation of a specific research unit called the Hezbollah Financing and Narcoterrorism Team, and later, in October, it designated Hezbollah as a transnational criminal organization, considering its drug trafficking and money laundering activities, beyond the label of terrorist organization that the US already granted it.

For its part, throughout 2018 the Treasury department proceeded with the inclusion of 31 individuals and entities related to Hezbollah on its sanctions list, including Lebanese financier Adham Tabaja, while the State department designated Jawad Nasrallah, son of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, as a terrorist in November and imposed sanctions on several Iraqi members of the organization.

These actions have basically affected operatives residing in the Middle East, but have had little impact on Hezbollah's structure in the Triple Frontier or in Venezuela, places indicated by the Administration as sites of implantation of that organization. Thus, the Under Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorist Financing, Marshall Billingslea, spoke in late October of a "deep and substantial footprint" of Hezbollah in the Western Hemisphere, with a "very robust presence" in the TBA, while Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has repeatedly stressed the relationship between the regime of Nicolás Maduro and Hezbollah, stating in February 2019 that in Venezuela there are "active cells" of that group.

Action in the Triple Frontier

However, the efforts of both the Trump Administration and the governments of Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay, to different extents, led to a major operation in 2018 in the TBA, the most significant in a long time: the arrest of Assad Ahmad Barakat, considered one of Hezbollah's main operatives in the area, who had already been sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury in 2004. For expert Joseph Humire, this constituted "a significant milestone in the regional effort against terrorism and transnational crimes practiced by Hezbollah in Latin America".

According to experts Emanuelle Ottolenghi and José Luis Stein, three factors have led to this new emphasis on the risk posed by Hezbollah. Firstly, there are indications that the funds that the group obtains from its financing networks in Latin America have grown notably, both because its needs have increased and because US sanctions on Iran may be restricting the economic support provided by the Iranian regime. Second, Washington is acting on the increased use of its financial system by the amounts generated for Hezbollah in Latin America. And thirdly, the greater reaction of Brasilia, Asunción and Paraguay is due to the changes of government that have taken place: April 2018 Abdo Benítez was elected president of Paraguay and in October Jair Bolsonaro won the Brazilian elections (previously Mauricio Macri had already replaced Cristina Fernández de Kirchner in the Casa Rosada).

The beginnings of Hezbollah in Latin America are directly related to the civil war in Lebanon, which in the 1980s caused a wave of migration to the American continent, particularly South America and especially in areas of easy trade, such as the Triple Border, where one of the largest free trade zones of the continent is located. Family and origin connections were used by group, through infiltrated elements, to develop recruitment, fundraising and money laundering activities.

It was not until 1994, however, that Hezbollah's presence in Latin America became notorious. That year saw the attack on the headquarters of the association Mutual Israelita Argentina (AMIA) in Buenos Aires, in which 85 people were killed. Although it was initially claimed by an unknown Islamic group , investigations soon led to the Triple Frontier and pointed to Hezbollah. It was also then suspected that this organization may have been behind the attack two years earlier against the Israeli embassy in the Argentine capital, where 22 people were killed. Everything indicates that in both cases the Triple Border was used for the logistics of the attacks and as a shelter for the perpetrators.

Hence, the latest security operations carried out in that area are of particular importance. At the request of the US, Paraguayan police arrested in May 2018 Nader Mohamad Fahrat and a month later Mahmoud Ali Barakat, both for drug trafficking and money laundering, in what would be a year especially focused on the clan led by Assad Ahmad Barakat. In July, the Financial Information Unit of Argentina froze the assets of 14 Lebanese (eleven with residency program in Brazil and three in Paraguay), all of them belonging to the clan. That network would have laundered money and evaded foreign currency to the value of US$10 million in a casino in the Argentine border city of Puerto Iguazú. In August, Paraguay's Public Prosecutor's Office issued an arrest warrant for the head of the clan, alleging the use of a false Paraguayan passport. Assad Ahmad Barakat was arrested in September by Brazilian police. In Paraguay and Argentina members of the clan were arrested, tried and convicted for crimes of money laundering, smuggling, product evasion and drug trafficking.