Big Cocaine Gang Allied to Hezbollah Rounded up (h/t GoV; emphasis added)
THE HAGUE, 30/04/09 – In cooperation with various other countries, Dutch authorities have rounded up a big cocaine gang that had links with Hezbollah. Seventeen suspects were arrested on Curacao, the biggest island of the Netherlands Antilles, the Public Prosecutor’s Office (OM) has revealed.
International cooperation between police and judicial services of the Netherlands and the Netherlands Antilles, Belgium, Colombia, Venezuela and the US led to the arrest of the 17 suspects by the Curacao police. They are believed to be part of a drugs and money-laundering organisation with international branches, thought to be responsible for the import and export of at least 2,000 kilos of cocaine per year, according to the OM. “The organisation maintained international contacts with other criminal networks, which in the Middle East support Hezbollah financially”.
In this investigation, launched at the beginning of 2008, containers with cocaine were intercepted earlier in Rotterdam (300 kilos), the Spanish city of Valencia (20 kilos) and the Belgian city of Antwerp (140 kilos). Three Colombian suspects have for some time been in pre-trial custody for their involvement in the Rotterdam shipment, discovered in October 2008.
The 17 suspects now arrested are from Venezuela, Colombia, Lebanon and Cuba as well as Curacao. The organisation shipped containers with cocaine from Curacao to the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain and Jordan. From Venezuela, drugs containers went to West Africa and subsequently to the Netherlands, Lebanon and Spain. Couriers smuggled cocaine from Curacao and Aruba to the Netherlands as air passengers.
The suspects invested the drugs profits in property in Colombia, Venezuela, Lebanon, the Dominican Republic and in companies on Curacao. “Large sums of money from the drugs trade have become available in Lebanon via underground bankers. From Lebanon, orders are also placed for weapons, which had to be delivered by the drugs organisation from South America.”
Babalu also posted on this atticle from the Lebanon Daily Star, Police link 17 ‘drug traders’ in Curacao with Hizbullah
BEIRUT: Police from seven nations arrested 17 people in the island of Curacao Tuesday suspected of involvement in an international drug ring with links to Hizbullah, Dutch authorities said. “The organization had international contacts with other criminal networks that financially supported Hizbullah in the Middle East. Large sums of drug money flooded into Lebanon, from where orders were placed for weapons that were to have been delivered from South America,” the Dutch prosecution service said in a statement.
The proceeds were allegedly invested in several countries, said the statement, adding that the suspects were from Curacao, the largest of the Dutch Antilles islands, as well as from Venezuela, Colombia, Lebanon and Cuba.
Yet another instance of the connection of drugs, terrorism and the weapons trade.
What is surprising is that the American media has no reports on this.
UPDATE
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WELL
about time someone got the word out. I agree, the willing allies of terror (the American Media) can’t report on their allies, that would lessen the Socialist agenda.
It isn’t surprising is it that another socially conservative group gets caught dealing the drugs that they outwardly despise
Because all “socially conservative groups” are the same in your book, of course.
hey
if you want to link chavezismo and drugs…look no further than Bolivia. after canning the u.s. ambassador and our DEA in August, the eastern city of Santa Cruz has become drug-central. Evo ”monkey man” Morales is thick into the cocaleros wo are his own union thugs for hire. Bolivia is now pushing more drugs to Brazil than any other source. Both Lula and the EU are up in arms, but hey…according to ‘monkey man”, its all medicinal. nice chimp…he’s a banana…