More evidence that Hezbollah is exploiting our porous border with Mexico

Via: The Examiner, BY: DAVE GIBSON

On Monday, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) unsealed an indictment against well known Lebanese drug trafficker and terrorist financier, Ayman Joumaa, the indictment paints yet another frightening picture of terror group Hezbollah’s involvement on our southern border.

The indictment reads: “During the course of the conspiracy, the defendant typically picked up between $2 [million] and $4 million at a time in Mexico City.”

Earlier this year, the U.S. Treasury Department alleged that Joumaa has been using currency exchange houses in Lebanon to launder money and also designated the LCB as a “Primary Money Laundering Concern.”

Joumaa has been financing Hezbollah’s terror operations for several years, according to U.S. officials.

Hezbollah on the Southern Border?

DEA Administrator Michele Leonhart told reporters: “According to information from sources, his alleged drug and money laundering activities facilitated numerous global drug trafficking organizations, including the criminal activities of the Los Zetas Mexican drug cartel.”

In a statement, U.S. Attorney Neil MacBride said: “Money fuels the drug trade, and Mr. Joumaa is alleged to be at the center of it all. Working with those producing the vast majority of the world’s cocaine to get their drugs safely into the hands of Mexican cartels, and then moving hundreds of millions in proceeds all around the world so the money can’t be traced back to them in Colombia.”

While this may represent the first concrete proof of Hezbollah’s connection with a Mexican drug cartel, such involvement there has long been evidence to suggest that the cartels and Hezbollah have been working together, as U.S. prisons have been seeing tattoos on cartel operatives showing alignment to the terrorist organization.

In January 2011, a police officer was killed and three others wounded when a car bomb went off near the town of Tula, Hidalgo, which is about 50 miles north of Mexico City. Police believe the Zetas Cartel was responsible for the attack.

Police received an anonymous phone call claiming that a body was inside the car. The bomb detonated when they opened he trunk.

Police Commander Victor Pena died from his injuries at a local hospital.

According to Mayor Rodolfo Paredes, there was no body found in the car.

Police found a written message near the car, and believe the bombing was in retaliation for a recent shootout in which police officers killed two Zetas.

During summer 2010, there was a spate of car bombings, which began in Juarez. While the attacks were part of the ongoing Mexican drug war which, so far, has claimed nearly 40,000 lives, it was the first time this tactic was used by the cartels.

Many were remotely detonated by cell phones, a carbon copy of the type of bombings so often seen in the Middle East.

On July 6, 2010, the Kuwaiti newspaper al-Seyassah reported that Mexican authorities arrested a Mexican national who was working for Hezbollah, and that the Islamic terrorist group has been recruiting Mexicans with ties to Lebanon to set up terror cells along the border.

On June 23, 2010, Rep. Sue Myrick (R-NC) wrote a letter to Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Janet Napolitano, asking that her agency form a task force to investigate the possible connection between the cartels and Hezbollah.

Despite the growing evidence, the DHS has claimed they have “no credible information on terrorist groups operating along our Southwest border.”

The mutual benefits to a relationship between the cartels and Hezbollah are obvious. The Islamic terrorists could train cartel hit men in terror tactics, in exchange for escorting them into the U.S., along established smuggling routes.