US sanctions 10 Lebanese financiers, Syrian drug dealers funding Hezbollah

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( JNS) The Biden administration sanction 10 individuals and entities in Lebanon and Syria that it says help fund the Hezbollah terror organization, including in the illegal trade of the drug Captagon.

“Today’s action underscores Hezbollah’s destabilizing influence within Lebanon and on the wider region, as the group, its affiliates and its supporters continue to finance their operations through covert involvement in commercial trade and the illicit trafficking of Captagon,” stated Bradley Smith, U.S. acting under secretary of the Treasury for terrorism and financial intelligence.

“Treasury will continue to expose and disrupt the illicit schemes that underpin Hezbollah’s ability to continue its violent attacks,” Smith stated.

Matthew Miller, the U.S. State Department spokesman, stated that the three Lebanese people and four companies sanctioned are part of “a sanctions evasion network that generates revenue for Hezbollah that fuels the terrorist group’s operations.”

“Hezbollah continues to launch rockets into Israel, further destabilizing both Lebanon and the region,” Miller said. He added that the three people, who produce and traffic illegally in Captagon, a “dangerous and highly-addictive amphetamine,” harm “communities and countries across the region and beyond” and provide “a source of funding for the Syrian regime and its backers, including Hezbollah.”

“The United States is steadfast in our commitment to disrupt Hezbollah’s access to the international financial system and its various methods of generating revenue, which the Iran-backed group uses to fund its violence,” Miller said. “We will also continue to target the illicit Captagon trade in the region, which has become an illicit billion-dollar enterprise operated in part by senior members of the Syrian regime.”

The U.S. government sanctioned Silvana Atwi and his company G.M. Farm, Haidar Houssam al-Din Abdul Ghaffar and his companies Global Tradeline SARL and Liban Oui SARL and Houssam Hamadi and his company United Sons for funding Hezbollah. All are based in Lebanon.

It also sanctioned the Lebanon-based Khaldoun Hamieh; the Syrian national Raji Falhout; and the Syria-based Adbellatif Hamideh for illegal trafficking in Captagon.