A Politico investigation has revealed how the administration of former US President Barack Obama attempted to suppress a Drugs Enforcement Agency operation to expose a money-laundering scheme in which “proceeds from Latin American drug-running were being funneled to Hezbollah.”
According to the examination released this week, DEA agents working on an operation codenamed “Project Cassandra” were hoping to prosecute operatives from Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed Lebanese militia, involved in cocaine trafficking and money laundering.
But in order to preserve the Iranian nuclear deal, a feature of the Obama legacy that the former administration prides itself on, the operation was “tamped down for fear of rocking the boat with Iran,” the investigation has found.
The nuclear deal saw economic sanctions lifted on Iran in exchange for the alleged suspension of the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program.
The eight-year-long DEA investigation saw agents using wiretaps, undercover operation and informants “to map Hezbollah’s illicit networks, with the help of 30 U.S. and foreign security agencies.”
Politico spoke with Project Cassandra agents, who claim that the Obama administration stifled or undermined the investigation, “allowing [the Hezbollah operatives] to remain active despite being under sealed US indictment for years.”
“This was a policy decision, it was a systematic decision,” David Asher, a financier who helped establish Project Cassandra.
“They serially ripped apart this entire effort that was very well supported and resourced, and it was done from the top down.”
Project Cassandra
Project Cassandra agents claim that officials at the Justice and Treasury departments repeatedly hindered Project Cassandra agents’ attempts to pursue “investigations, prosecutions, arrests and financial sanctions” against key figures in the scheme.
The operation, which made use of law enforcement agencies in seven countries, is believed to have uncovered “evidence that Hezbollah had transformed itself from a Middle East-focused military and political organization into an international crime syndicate that some investigators believed was collecting $1 billion a year from drug and weapons trafficking, money laundering and other criminal activities,” Politico reported.
Project Cassandra highlighted the “the dangerous global nexus between drug trafficking and terrorism”
Hezbollah operatives allegedly used the drug money to buy weapons that have been used in Syria.
The Obama administration seemingly let Hezbollah “off the hook,” Politico surmises. This is despite the US Department of State declaring the Lebanese militia a foreign terrorist organization since 1997.
Source » alarabiya