U.S. Treasury Sanctions a Top Hezbollah Financier and Representative to Iran

Latest Hezbollah sanctions part of broader U.S. effort to sideline terror-designated group

WASHINGTON—The U.S. Treasury Department on Thursday sanctioned a top Hezbollah financier and the group’s representative to Iran, citing what the department describes as their links to a drug-trafficking ring and oil-sale contracts to Gambia as multimillion-dollar funding channels for the Lebanese militia designated by the U.S. as a terror organization.

The designation of Mohammad Ibrahim Bazzi as one of Hezbollah’s top financiers and Abdallah Safi-Al-Din as the group’s representative to Tehran is part of a broader U.S. campaign to target Iran and sideline its regional proxies threatening U.S. interests and allies in the Middle East.

U.S. officials link the activities of the two directly to the head of Hezbollah, Hasan Nasrallah, who was blacklisted by the U.S. and several Gulf nations on Wednesday for his role as the supreme commander of the group’s military and security operations around the world.

The U.S. contends Hezbollah’s chief is aware of all of its financing operations, including those run by Mr. Safi-Al-Din, who is Mr. Nasrallah’s cousin, and Mr. Bazzi, an associate of the group’s leader. Mr. Safi-Al-Din, Treasury said, has served as Hezbollah’s key interlocutor to Iran on financial issues, including working bolster political and economic ties between Gambia and Tehran.

None of the three could immediately be reached for comment. A Hezbollah official declined to comment.

“This action highlights the duplicity and disgraceful conduct of Hezbollah and its Iranian backers,” Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in a statement. “Despite Nasrallah’s claims, Hezbollah uses financiers like Bazzi who are tied to drug dealers, and who launder money to fund terrorism.”

An official at Iran’s United Nations mission didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

The U.S. says Mr. Bazzi was able to win monopoly oil import contracts from Gambia’s former dictator, Yahya Jammeh, who was sanctioned by the U.S. last year for alleged gross human-rights abuses and pilfering state assets during his 22-year reign.

Mr. Bazzi, the Treasury said, used firms in Europe, Lebanon and Africa to sell the oil to Gambia, sending proceeds back to Hezbollah. The U.S. sanctioned those firms, including Belgium-based Global Trading Group NV and Lebanon-based Car Escort Services SAL Off Shore.

Calls for comment to Global Trading Group weren’t immediately answered or returned. Car Escort Services couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.

The import-export company, Treasury said, has business ties to Ayman Joumaa, a Lebanese man sanctioned by the U.S. in 2011 as a drug-trafficking kingpin who allegedly ran $200-million-a-month cocaine and money-laundering operation between South America and the Middle East.

Mr. Joumaa couldn’t immediately be reached, and his lawyer in Washington didn’t immediately return a request for comment. In a court filing challenging the U.S. Treasury’s decision to sanction him and the blocking of his assets, however, Mr. Joumaa said he isn’t engaged in narcotic trafficking activities.

Hezbollah, a political and military force in Lebanon, is considered an overseas terror threat by the U.S., particularly for playing a role in the Syrian civil war supporting President Bashar al-Assad alongside Russia and Iran and as a proxy for Tehran’s sanctioned Quds Force, the elite wing of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

The U.S. intelligence community’s latest assessment of world-wide threats reported that Hezbollah has increased its global terror activity in recent years to a level not seen since the 1990s.

The U.S. is in part trying to discredit the group as a political organization not only in its home country and the Middle East, but also in Europe, where some governments recognize its political activities as a separate, legitimate institution.

—Asa Fitch in Dubai and Nazih Osseiran in Beirut contributed to this article.

Write to Ian Talley at ian.talley@wsj.com 

Source: Wall Street Journal

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