Lebanese Canadian Bank laundered money for Hezbollah, says US in lawsuit
Source: BI-ME with Bloomberg , Author: Posted by BI-ME staff
Posted: Sat December 17, 2011 12:56 pm



Run MS Office Pro
2010 on latest Win7
Ultimate OS to
increase your
business confidence




Buy HP Pavilion
 laptop with Corsair
DDR3 RAM for
superb performance




Need a personal loan
in Dubai? Contact
Citibank UAE for all
of your banking needs

INTERNATIONAL. Lebanese Canadian Bank and two Lebanese exchange houses helped launder more than US$480 million for the Hezbollah terrorist group in a scheme that involved buying and selling used cars, the U.S. said in a civil complaint.

Federal prosecutors filed a lawsuit in Manhattan today claiming the defendants took money from Lebanon to buy used cars in the U.S. and sell them in West Africa. Money from the car sales and from drug trafficking was funneled through Hezbollah- linked money laundering channels back to Lebanon, according to the complaint.

“The intricate scheme laid out in today’s complaint reveals the deviously creative ways that terrorist organizations are funding themselves and moving their money, and it puts into stark relief the nexus between narcotics trafficking and terrorism,” U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said in a statement today.

The U.S. Treasury Department in February identified Lebanese Canadian Bank as a “financial institution of primary money laundering concern,” according to the statement. As a result, financial institutions in the U.S. cut their ties to the bank, making it impossible for it to send money to the U.S., prosecutors said.

Hezbollah, based in Lebanon, was designated as a foreign terrorist organization by U.S. President Bill Clinton in 1997. The suit filed Thursday also names as defendants Hassan Ayash Exchange Co. and Ellissa Holding, both Lebanese exchange firms.

 

MIDDLE EAST BUSINESS COMMENT & ANALYSIS

date:Posted: May 18, 2013
UAE. "The general trading atmosphere is sufficiently negative for gold to enable sellers to have a firm grip on the market. However, I fail to see how the rally in the stock markets can be put into any sensible relation to the economic plight of the underlying countries."
date:Posted: May 17, 2013
EGYPT. The Egyptian government has taken tentative steps towards reducing the roughly US$20 billion subsidy system that supporters say provides vital aid to the one-in-four Egyptians in poverty, and critics say is unsustainable and enriches the corrupt.
date:Posted: May 17, 2013
UAE. Red Hat's Mark Little and Tom Llewellyn explain how Large-scale Elastic Architecture for Data-as-a-Service (LEADS) will enable enterprises to leverage all of the public data on the web against privately held data.



Wide selection of craft tools and coloured pencils will give more options to your creative side


Doing business in the Middle East? Your starting point is GulfTradeHolding, the Middle East Business Directory