One of the ways Hezbollah earns money — about one billion dollars a year — is by drug trafficking. It controls much of the sale of drugs sent from Colombia and Venezuela to customers in the United States, Europe, and the Middle East. For eight years, beginning in 2008, a wide-ranging investigation by the Drug Enforcement Agency known as Project Cassandra uncovered how Hezbollah had transformed itself from a Middle Eastern political and military organization into an international crime syndicate, but Project Cassandra was shut down by the Obama administration, that wanted to go easy on Hezbollah in order to curry favor with Iran at a time when the administration wanted Tehran to agree to the “Iran deal” that, it was hoped, would stop Iran’s nuclear project from proceeding (spoiler alert: it didn’t). More on the Obama administration’s folly can be found here: “Hezbollah received billions of dollars thanks to Obama shutting down a DEA operation to destroy its drug smuggling operations,” Elder of Ziyon, October 28, 2024:
In 2017, Politico broke a story that has particular relevance to what is happening in Lebanon today.
In its determination to secure a nuclear deal with Iran, the Obama administration derailed an ambitious law enforcement campaign targeting drug trafficking by the Iranian-backed terrorist group Hezbollah, even as it was funneling cocaine into the United States, according to a POLITICO investigation.
The campaign, dubbed Project Cassandra, was launched in 2008 after the Drug Enforcement Administration amassed evidence that Hezbollah had transformed itself from a Middle East-focused military and political organization into an international crime syndicate that some investigators believed was collecting $1 billion a year from drug and weapons trafficking, money laundering and other criminal activities.
Over the next eight years, agents working out of a top-secret DEA facility in Chantilly, Virginia, used wiretaps, undercover operations and informants to map Hezbollah’s illicit networks, with the help of 30 U.S. and foreign security agencies.
They followed cocaine shipments, some from Latin America to West Africa and on to Europe and the Middle East, and others through Venezuela and Mexico to the United States. They tracked the river of dirty cash as it was laundered by, among other tactics, buying American used cars and shipping them to Africa. And with the help of some key cooperating witnesses, the agents traced the conspiracy, they believed, to the innermost circle of Hezbollah and its state sponsors in Iran.
But as Project Cassandra reached higher into the hierarchy of the conspiracy, Obama administration officials threw an increasingly insurmountable series of roadblocks in its way, according to interviews with dozens of participants who in many cases spoke for the first time about events shrouded in secrecy, and a review of government documents and court records. When Project Cassandra leaders sought approval for some significant investigations, prosecutions, arrests and financial sanctions, officials at the Justice and Treasury departments delayed, hindered or rejected their requests.
“This was a policy decision, it was a systematic decision,” said David Asher, who helped establish and oversee Project Cassandra as a Defense Department illicit finance analyst. “They serially ripped apart this entire effort that was very well supported and resourced, and it was done from the top down.”
The article also notes how the Obama administration was convinced that Hezbollah had “moderate” elements that could be encouraged….
Of course, there is no “moderate” wing of Hezbollah. This was a fantasy that the greenhorns in the Obama administration allowed themselves to believe.
Did Obama’s attempt to curry favor with Iran by ending an investigation into Hezbollah for drug-and-weapons trafficking work? Did the “Iran deal” that Tehran ultimately agreed to actually halt Iran’s march to nuclear weapons, or only slow it down? Tehran did not stop working on its nuclear project, but the Obama administration refused to recognize its own folly in trusting the Iranians to uphold their side of the Iran deal. Still worse, despite the evidence amassed by the investigators of Operation Cassandra, there was no attempt to stop Hezbollah from continuing its drug trafficking operation. The billion dollars it took in paid both for weapons (not all of its weapons are supplied free by Iran) and for the salaries of its fighters. The Middle East would have become a very different place if the Obama administration had gone after Hezbollah as a criminal enterprise, and shut down its trafficking operations. Had that happened, perhaps Obama would have earned his undeserved and inexplicable Nobel Peace Prize.
somehistory says
Several things I think about this…because ..when studying anti-terrorism (studying terrorists, profiling, what laws applied, investigating, etc….one of things that disturbed me was finding out just how much money was going to mozlum terrorists the world over through the drug and arms smuggling into the U.S.
The taliban made huge profits from this drug smuggling business into the U.S. hezbollah and hamas were found to do the same, but hezbollah and hamas had a friend in the WH….putting his dirty feet on the desk and scheming about how to stop the investigations.
bo stopped the trial of the members of c.a.i.r who were funding hamas. and he stopped the DEA’s efforts against hezbollah.
And, it was not to get iran **not** to have nuclear weapons. It was in order to give gazillions of taxpayer’s dollars to iran so they could have nuclear weapons; and so they could fund hamas and hezbollah and the other terrorists in their terror state.
Secret pallets of gobs of money sent on planes….by bo to iran. That money was to fund the terror against Israel and the U.S.
bo needs to be behind bars someplace where he cannot be considered a ‘former president’ having secret service to protect him. Like he, biden and the hyena have been slavering for Mr. Trump.
bo needs to face Justice.
James Lincoln says
somehistory says,
:bo needs to face Justice.”
Absolutely.
But it’s nevvah gunnah happen…
somehistory says
Maybe not from men, James, but he will face it. And he won’t like it one bit.
James Lincoln says
Agree, somehistory.
Troybeam says
The picture of Obama with this article clearly shows what he feels about our country, the citizens and the Constitution. How often has he used this pose in pictures.
How many people out there knew he had a person in the White House under the Fellowship Program that was very well versed in sharia law? My guess was finding ways to state sharia is acceptable to the Constitution but alas it is not. Sharia law is Islam legal/judicial system aka a theocracy.
Article 6 of the Constitution, only law of the land (USA) is the Constitution. Currently there are 2 legal systems here in American thanks to the democrats, the other is sharia law. It is operating in banking and sharia courts for Muslims only.
somehistory says
I can’t stand looking at the photo. Wish I could unsee it
Donna says
Scraping my brains off the ceiling! DEATH TO TRAITORS!
Barry Goldberg says
There were no greenhorns in the Obama administration, just as there are none in the Biden-Harris administration. They’re all full-on Marxists, and it was, and is, a full-on red-green alliance.
The Istanbulian says
21st century hashashin
Same old same old
gravenimage says
Obama Administration Shut Down Investigation of Hezbollah as a Criminal Enterprise
………………………………….
This, of course, should surprise no one…
Were things any different under Biden? I rather doubt it…
OLD GUY says
Biden operated under the puppet master Obama, as well will Kamala if democrats can get her in office.
A good investigation might be how did Obama really get so wealthy?
gravenimage says
+1
tgusa says
This makes sense because the democrat party is a criminal enterprise itself.
࿗Infidel࿘ says
Obama rightly was suspicious of Saudi Arabia, as it was the King Abdullah regime, as opposed to the MbS regime of today. However, his choice of vehicle for a jihad against the Saudis – Iran, was bizarre, given that their main target was more Israel than Saudi Arabia. Hence all his attempts to back Arab Spring revolutions like in Libya, and completely destabilize the region
The fact that he needed to go as far as going easy on Hizbullah to appease Teheran tells its own story
Jamie James says
This is the documentary called Hezbollah Inc, a fascinating watch if you can get hold of it. It is a must-watch and shows Obama treason.
JimJFox says
His statements of support and admiration for Islam given at the OIC in Cairo was the most ASTONISHING rhetoric from any US president ever. I was sickened and yet very little was made of it at the time…
What the hell has gone wrong with the world in recent decades??
gravenimage says
Yes–that fawning from Obama was appalling.