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Following the Beirut port explosion, a covert DEA operation unravels Hezbollah's state within a state in Lebanon, built over decades through infiltration of government and defiance of justice, with a goal of establishing Sharia law.
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28:23There has been reporting that it was Nasrallah at the meeting.
28:31I think it was much more likely that it was Igmad Mughniyah, the head of military operations
28:36for Hezbollah.
28:42Clearly both were very contrary to the national security policies of the United States.
28:48They believe they shared a common enemy, and Hezbollah is certainly offering their expertise
28:53and resistance in creating malicious systems.
29:07Some of the other, I think, interesting connections that came out were, for example, there was
29:11an airline out of Venezuela called Conviasa.
29:14Some have called it Aeroterror.
29:16And we started to learn there's a weekly flight to Tehran.
29:20Very often it stopped over in Damascus.
29:26Planes loaded with weapons, you know, RPGs, surface-to-air missiles, AK rifles, into Venezuela from these
29:34flights.
29:35And also they were picking up large sums of cash, you know, cocaine, bringing that stuff
29:40back into the Middle East.
29:47You get seven to ten tons coming out of Venezuela a week.
29:52Okay?
29:53Seven to ten tons is a lot of coke.
29:59One of the most important things that we have been doing is a lot of people.
30:06This partnership, this narco-terrorist partnership is emerging between the government of Venezuela
30:13under Hugo Chavez and the Iranians and Hezbollah.
30:18We give you the welcome to an insigne leader like you, leader of a heroic people, the Iranian people,
30:27and leader of a revolution, the sister of the Venezuelan revolution, the Islamic revolution.
30:33Today, Venezuela is a jubile.
30:38Welcome, brother.
30:41Drugs became part of the resistance, narco-resistance.
30:51Trafficking the dope erodes the infidels, hurts their youth, spoils their power.
31:02We started to see some really higher level then as well in officials, persons like Tarek
31:08Al-Asami, who's the former Minister of Interior and I believe the former Vice President.
31:13He's at Lebanese-Syrian descent, ties back to that part of the world.
31:22Tarek is one of those really powerful officials who has so much influence in a country that
31:28he allows the system to operate.
31:33He allows the drug traffickers to be protected.
31:35He allows flights to leave without people doing their job and inspecting it.
31:39He allows travel documents to be issued for persons in other countries
31:44that otherwise might not be eligible for receiving those travel documents.
31:48He allows massive amounts of monies to be laundered through formal financial institutions.
31:53Yesterday, the Department of Treasury's Office of Foreign Asset Control, known as OFAC,
32:04designated Venezuelan national Tarek Al-Asami as a specially designated narcotics trafficker
32:12pursuant for playing a significant role in international narcotics trafficking.
32:17Hezbollah wanted to get closer and closer to being involved in the distribution and laundering.
32:33So they became sort of an end-to-end element in the drug trafficking.
32:36You know, not something you normally see a terrorist organization do.
32:40When it came to the drug business, these guys were eager to make a buck and very aggressive.
32:47And not necessarily that careful.
32:50The U.S. and Israeli teams put together a very, very small explosive.
33:18Ultimately, one night coming out of Syrian military intelligence,
33:21Imad Mughniyah got into his vehicle and the explosive was detonated, killing him instantly.
33:29The man who's existence was denied during life,
33:47but in death embraced.
33:50He and only he held this mystique.
33:56The removal of Imad Mughniyah, I think, was a very significant takedown for the organization.
34:06With Imad Mughniyah's death, Hezbollah didn't just lose a military legend.
34:19It lost the man who controlled the organization's illicit finances.
34:25This weakened its power within Lebanon.
34:28But the party of God is most dangerous when threatened.
34:34Hassan Nasrallah took the ultimate risk, a coup to tighten his grip on the country.
34:41This day, Beyrouth was a very difficult time for the country.
35:09This day, Beirut is completely empty.
35:14The Lebanese army disappeared.
35:16It disappeared, like by enchantment.
35:18And the chief-major chief, who was a friend,
35:22said to him,
35:24use a blind car,
35:26do not stop at any barrages.
35:29Fonce through the barrages
35:32and if we shoot on you, riposte,
35:34that people riposte.
35:36I'm a minister in charge.
35:39The army was killed.
35:41The army was killed.
35:42The army was killed.
35:44The army was killed.
35:46The army was killed.
35:48The army was killed.
35:49The army was killed.
35:51On this day,
35:52the army was killed.
35:54In black blouses,
35:56they invested their capital.
36:01It's exactly like the march of Mussolini on Rome.
36:09the army was killed.
36:10That was so painful.
36:12The army got attacked by the intruder.
36:13It was a awful lot ofatal
36:37We have to move the country a little bit, a little bit,
36:39and we have to make sure that we are going to live.
36:41This permanent grignotage of the power
36:44is, at this moment,
36:47to move forward to what will be later,
36:50and it is now now,
36:53the absolute power of Hassan Nasrallah
36:56on the Liban.
37:01What happened in seven days,
37:03was to move forward to the vast majority of this war.
37:12Well, I tell you,
37:14there was a promise in the past few years
37:17that we have to move forward to the peace and peace between the war and the war.
37:21And that's it!
37:26There is a decision, it is Hassan Nasrallah,
37:30But through him, the big decision is Téhéran.
38:00They have been building up over the years a parallel system.
38:06So, Yanni, you can go here to a supermarket controlled by Hezbollah, where you find Iranian
38:14products.
38:15There are hospitals under the control of Hezbollah, there are banks under the control of Hezbollah.
38:28I mean, Iran has a long-term strategy.
38:58Today's strategy was to create the first time the Farisian emperor to reach the river
39:05to the south of the Mediterranean.
39:07Thanks to Iran's unfailing support, Hezbollah has considerable control over Lebanese political,
39:09economic and judicial life.
39:10But in its impossible investigation, the DEA had a significant advantage.
39:16It had unlimited means.
39:18By tracing Hezbollah's narco-dollars, the DEA reached the Shiite empire's outpost, Africa,
39:25which is home to a large Lebanese community.
39:32So, during Project Cassandra, we actually identified probably one of the biggest trade-based money-laundering
39:39schemes that I'm aware of to support terrorist organizations like Hezbollah.
39:44West Africa was a hub for global cocaine trafficking around the world.
39:51And so we started putting a lot of resources into West Africa.
39:57We had aerial photos in 2006, and the land was completely vacant along the coastline.
40:16So there's just these big stretches of beach.
40:21And then in 2007, you start to see these used car lots start emerging.
40:24By 2008, they're full of cars.
40:26Like 30,000, 40,000 cars a week are going through these car lots.
40:35We didn't really understand it.
40:37I mean, nothing wrong with importing cars and doing, you know, international car business.
40:41It's a legal business.
40:47Who owned those car lots?
40:49Well, quite a few of them were owned by Lebanese who were supporters of Hezbollah.
40:59Ali Karubi was living in Benin.
41:02He was one of the main guys that established working with Amun Juma
41:07and all of these guys that were establishing Hezbollah's operations in Africa.
41:11They would take the drug money, buy used cars, send those used cars to West Africa, sell the used cars,
41:22then send the money, the clean money, back to Lebanon.
41:31And then it would go make its way back to South America to buy more cocaine, and this thing would continue.
41:37And the beauty of it is there were legitimate business owners that were making money.
41:51People in West Africa were getting cars, so they were happy, right?
41:55And Hezbollah under the radar was getting their cut of the profits to develop the cash flow that they needed to carry out their global agenda.
42:03We have not paid money in China.
42:06We have not paid money in China,
42:08and we are not paid to trade companies.
42:10We have businesses,
42:13we have businesses,
42:14we have businesses,
42:16we have businesses,
42:18we have bills,
42:20but they are guys.
42:21We can have some people
42:23to have rights to the law or whatever they need.
42:25We have a relationship with this issue.
42:27we estimated about 200 million dollars a month was being generated from this scheme that's over
42:37do the math right 200 billion times 12 right that's 2.4 billion dollars annually
42:45figuring that out was enough of a challenge let me tell you it was complicated
42:55and you know the money moves back to buy more narcotics and this thing keeps repeating
43:02except you know as it repeats it gets bigger and bigger and bigger and that's when we started to
43:09see our opportunity to try to choke it as well I had a plan in place and then that was let's take
43:19over a bank and the easiest way to do that was in Lebanon by 2009 2010 when we started to look at
43:30the Lebanese Canadian Bank seriously we wanted to figure out what this bank was doing and then I
43:40wanted to penetrate the bank and get inside it and we were Colombian drug traffickers not me my guys
43:50and money launderers and what was the relationship between Lebanese Canadian Bank and Hezbollah we
43:58later learned that in effect Hezbollah had about a 28% ownership of Lebanese Canadian Bank
44:05for us it was the smoking gun because it backed up all the analysis and the other evidence we had been gathering
44:16you know they take hundreds of millions of dollars in cash they'd literally bring it on in on pallets
44:40dump it in the bank and suddenly it's inside the Lebanese banking system
44:43how much billions billions billions of dollars a year
44:55Hezbollah accounts through credits and debits moved five billion dollars in 18 months just through Lebanese
45:04Canadian bank accounts that shows you the significant amount of money
45:08and I wanted to target that bank and then I wanted to bankrupt that bank and that's exactly what we did
45:19Section 311 is often described as the atomic bomb of Treasury authorities so the the practical result means that you lose as a matter of law your access to the U.S. financial system in this case Lebanese Canadian Bank it becomes much much more difficult to engage in
45:49and you know that if you don't have a lot of transactions informally you'll probably lose almost all of your financial relationships anywhere in the world
45:56I like to think of it as a big bowl of yarn and as you pulled the string of yarn more and more and more cases came out authorities are still today pulling at the strings of the Lebanese Canadian Bank
46:13and finding cases from North America to Africa and Europe and across the Middle East
46:20It was a tremendously insightful window into a very very broad range of Hezbollah activities
46:32The dismantling of the Lebanese Canadian Bank was a precious victory for the DEA in its global war on the financing of Hezbollah
46:47The vice was tightening on the Shiite Islamist organization
46:53After several years of obstruction the inquiry into Rafi Kariri's assassination was reopened
47:08The UN established the special tribunal for Lebanon
47:13For the first time the divine impunity of the party of God was publicly questioned
47:20The creation of the special tribunal for Lebanon is the result of a tragedy
47:27The killing of a former prime minister and of 22 other persons
47:34The STL is the first international anti-terrorist tribunal
47:40The creation of the tribunal was a political decision
47:45It's operation however is... and must remain above politics
47:58The special tribunal for Lebanon is now in session
48:00The opening of the tribunal special for Lebanon is open
48:04Please be seated, preillions of seats
48:06In 2010, I joined the Special Tribunal for the Liban, so the TSL, as we call it, and its function is to investigate not only on the assassination of Rafi Khairi, but also on an ensemble of crimes connexes.
48:24It was a delicate enquête, because we worked abroad in a difficult context, of tension, of course.
48:34We were moving with protected vehicles, there were multiple controls, checkpoints, we were living in specific places.
48:43We were surrounded by 1 000 precautions, because the enquêteers were still visés.
48:54There was also a Liban inquiry that was nourished by the Tribunal for the Liban, and in particular, the investigations that were carried out by a Lebanese officer, Wissam Haid, who paid his life.
49:15GENERAL ELEVAN
49:24Lake Bihon
49:32GENERAL ELEVAN
49:36That's right, this was the Mila-Saw come, and that was the diesep with us, and we went on our borders to the UNFTAGI, the descent, and the USA.
49:43We can tell them all the details and the details that we have done
49:47in one of the areas that we have come back to, unfortunately,
49:50and we have to fight against them.
50:02God, I don't want you to talk to me again.
50:05Another time, Abou Elzar, he said,
50:07God bless you, God bless you.
50:09How do you think about us, God?
50:13Nearly six years on, and the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri
50:33remains officially unsolved.
50:36It is not for lack of evidence, evidence which points directly and indirectly to Hezbollah.
50:43The government has given us an indication that Hezbollah is the first part of the Hezbollah,
51:01because there was a group of evidence.
51:04They only have about 8 evidence.
51:08They say no one else.
51:10And these numbers we saw were always behind the Raffiq Al-Hariri.
51:27And the day of the day was going to change the day of the day.
51:29We believe that all the evidence is a evidence that is a evidence that is based on the contacts and on the guidelines that are not appropriate.
51:49And with that, there is a fight against the relations network
51:54in a normal way.
51:55And the government has no relation to the explosion and the failure.
52:07I've seen the evidence, and it's very good.
52:10It was Hezbollah who killed Hariri.
52:15You cannot fake this evidence.
52:17And if any Lebanese say, oh, they made this shit up, the CIA did,
52:21they're stupid.
52:23They're liars.
52:24Stupid or liars.
52:28The indictment charges eight of the four accused.
52:32That's Mr. Salim Jamil Ayyash, Mr. Mustafa Amin Badreddin,
52:38Mr. Hussain Hassan Onisi, and Mr. Assad Hassan Sabra,
52:45with four crimes contrary to Lebanese law.
52:50We then decided to proceed to trial in absentia.
52:54.
52:56,
53:01,
53:03,
53:04,
53:07,
53:08.
53:09It was a warning to the Lebanese state and journalists, don't come after us for Hariri
53:33because we'll kill you.
53:34I tell you, you go to Nasrallah's office, knock on the door and say, I want to do a film
53:40about his killing Hariri, and you'll probably not come out of Lebanon alive.
53:46They don't joke around with this.
53:48All that is international justice, international law, international law, international law,
54:03all that has no value.
54:05It has no value for them.
54:0915 years after Rafi Kariri's assassination, the SDL delivered its verdict.
54:19Three members of Hezbollah received life sentences.
54:23They've never been arrested.
54:27The fourth defendant, a top-ranking Hezbollah member, is presumed dead.
54:35Impunity continues, whilst its clandestine financing networks are recreated on other continents.
54:48They were looking for places where they could operate.
54:55Europe is important for Hezbollah for lots of reasons.
54:57It is a place where Hezbollah can raise a lot of money.
55:01It is a place where Hezbollah can carry out operations.
55:06It is close to Lebanon.
55:14France appears in some ways to be their command and control center for their activities in
55:20the rest of Europe.
55:25France appears in a place where Hezbollah can carry out a lot of money.
55:35The second defendant is a place where Hezbollah can carry out a lot of money.
55:45Hezbollah can carry out a lot of money.
56:03The third defendant is a place where Hezbollah can carry out a lot of money.
56:06The third defendant is a place where Hezbollah can carry out a lot of money.
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