The US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) on Wednesday imposed new sanctions against three individuals, five companies and two vessels involved in the smuggling of oil and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), which generate substantial revenues for Hezbollah.
“The network is made up of Lebanese businessmen and companies, and overseen by a senior member of Hezbollah’s financial team. It has facilitated dozens of deliveries of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) to the Syrian government and channeled the profits to Hezbollah. These oil and LPG smuggling operations generate hundreds of millions of dollars for Hezbollah and support the group’s terrorist activities,” said the US Treasury in a statement published today on its website.
For his part, the Treasury’s Acting Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, Bradley T. Smith, singled out Hezbollah “for continuing to launch rockets into Israel and fuel regional instability, choosing to prioritize the financing of violence over the people it claims to care about, including the tens of thousands of displaced people in southern Lebanon.”
Smith warned Hezbollah that “ the Treasury will continue to disrupt oil smuggling and other funding networks that support its war machine.”
Today’s action by the US Treasury, “is part of the anti-terrorism authority, Executive Order 13224, as amended. On October 31, 2001, when the US State Department designated Hezbollah as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist Group (SDGT) pursuant to E.O. 13224,” the text also points out.
