The Donald Trump administration today designated Hezbollah as a top transnational criminal organization, devoting more resources to targeting the Lebanese paramilitary group’s racketeering and drug trafficking activities abroad. Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced the creation of a Justice Department task force specifically targeting Hezbollah along with four Latin American cartels.
Why it matters: Hezbollah may seem like the odd man out in a list of gangs that are predominantly active in Latin America, but the Lebanese organization does its own fair share of trafficking and money laundering throughout South and Central America. The new task force is an effort to tighten the screws on Hezbollah’s foreign funding streams as the Trump administration seeks to ratchet up the pressure on Iran and its proxies.
