US Congress considers anti-narcotics bill to pile more sanctions on Hezbollah
The US Congress is considering a bill that will give President Donald Trump the authority to designate Hezbollah “a significant foreign narcotics trafficker” or “a transnational criminal organisation”.
Two months ago, the Justice Department formed the Hezbollah Financing and Narco-terrorism Team to investigate illicit activities by the Lebanese movement.
The bill, officially named the Hezbollah Kingpin Designation Act, is being considered by the House of Representatives’ foreign affairs committee, a spokesman for its author, North Carolina Congressman Ted Budd, told The National.
Republican Mr Budd introduced the bill, which has been co-sponsored by Democrat Congressman Lee Zeldin, on February 15.
If it is passed it will require the president to decide on the two designations within 120 days. Either designation, if authorised by the president, would lead to further US sanctions on the Lebanese militant group and political party.
Congress and the Trump government have increased pressure on Hezbollah in the past year with several bills and Treasury Department sanctions already targeting the movement.
The bill refers to Hezbollah’s alleged links to drug cartels in Latin America and quotes evidence from the US Drug Enforcement Administration and its Project Cassandra operation to identify the Iranbacked movement “as a major supplier of cocaine into the US”.
An investigation by the news site Politico last year said Project Cassandra was launched in 2008 after the DEA amassed evidence that Hezbollah “was collecting $1 billion (Dh3.8bn) a year from drug and weapons trafficking, money laundering and other criminal activities”.
Mr Budd’s bill mentions the US indictment in 2011 of Ayman Saied Joumaa, a Lebanese-Colombian dual national with ties to Hezbollah.
It accuses the movement of “using a global network of companies operating out of Latin America, West Africa and Lebanon to launder up to $200 million a month in drug proceeds for Mexican and Colombian cartels”.
The legislation will also require the Treasury to issue a report to several congressional committees within one year of it being enacted “containing an estimate of the total assets under direct or indirect control by Hezbollah-linked leaders of political parties or movements who are located in the US”.
Katherine Bauer, a former Treasury official and a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, told The
National that if the bill passed both chambers of Congress, “information as well as evidence needs to be compiled by the administration” to decide whether Hezbollah fits either of the designations.
Since the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act was signed into law in 1999 during the presidency of Bill Clinton, almost 2,000 people and organisations have been designated “significant foreign narcotics traffickers”.
That has allowed the Treasury to freeze any assets held by the parties in US jurisdictions and to prosecute Americans who help these parties handle their money.