On Thursday, the United States Treasury Department dropped a rather big bombshell in a press release designating 10 individuals involved in a massive cash-moving operation in Lebanon, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, and Iran. The purpose was to fund Hezbollah, to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars.
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The Treasury Department’s press release states in part:
Today (Thursday), the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) is designating 10 individuals that are part of a network responsible for transferring cash to Hizballah. The network utilizes couriers travelling on commercial airline flights between Lebanon, Turkiye, the UAE, and Iran to move up to hundreds of millions of dollars between jurisdictions, providing an avenue outside the formal financial system for Hizballah to obtain foreign currency and evade sanctions. OFAC is also re-designating Hizballah for service to the Iranian regime under the command of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Qods Force (IRGC-QF).
Note that the Office of Foreign Assets Control, or OFAC, has also denounced Hezbollah for operating under the command of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). This is a connection that most people knew existed, but now the concrete links have been found.
This is another strike against Iran, as part of America’s Operation Economic Fury. And, it’s another spike in the coffin of Hezbollah being an independent Lebanon-based insurgent group, which nobody who has been watching that part of the world for more than approximately eight seconds believed in any case.
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Hizballah and its allies exploit financing schemes including oil smuggling, illicit shipping, commodities sales, and bulk cash smuggling to generate and move funds across the region. The network targeted today, which was once associated with now-deceased IRGC-QF finance official Behnam Shahriyari, is one example of the methods used to funnel support to terrorist proxy groups throughout the region.
So, this network isn’t just moving cash to prop up what’s left of the Iranian regime. This appears to have been a key pipeline for cash moving from Iran to Hezbollah and other Islamic terror groups. Iran is, of course, the world’s foremost state sponsor of Islamic terrorism, and now one of the heads of that snake is being removed.
What all of this means is that the squeeze is on, and it’s only going to get tighter. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, whom I have been saying for some time now is the best Treasury Secretary since Alexander Hamilton, has made Operation Economic Fury a priority, and he has been tightening the screws on what’s left of Iran’s civil and military leaders. This move will tighten things up for Iran’s terrorist clients, as well.
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This isn’t going to be an operation with a short time window, though. The main target of most of these operations is Iran’s leadership cadres, and these are the people who are least and last affected by economic sanctions. These squirrels no doubt have plenty of nuts stashed away, both in Iran and, likely, in banks in Switzerland or the Cayman Islands. Sooner or later, though, even the mullahs and the supposedly still above-ground Supreme Leader will start to feel the pinch.
Hezbollah, though, will be starting to feel the pinch much sooner. That’s good, and that’s always worth doing, every day and twice on Sunday.
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