Hezbollah drug ring broken up in Ecuador
By Matthew Levitt
One June 21, 2005 Ecuadorian police announced their success in breaking up an international drug trafficking ring led by a Lebanese restaurant owner, Rady Zaiter, residing in Quito, Ecuador. According to the police report, evidence “confirms the relationship between this organization and the terrorist movement Hezbollah.” The document further explains that the criminal ring, which earned millions of dollars by exporting cocaine, sent “up to 70 percent of its profits” to Hezbollah.” Ecuadorian police maintained that each drug shipment was worth around one million dollars.
Zaiter (who also was known under the aliases David Assi Alvarez and Almawla Fares) was arrested in Bogota, Columbia last week, and five other men, from Lebanon, Syria, Nigeria, Algeria, and Turkey, along with one Ecuadorian woman, were detained in Ecuador for their suspected involvement with the cocaine-smuggling ring. Ecuadorian police also seized over 170,000 U.S. dollars, 2,000 euros, vehicles and weapons as part of the operation. In Brazil, nineteen other members of the Hezbollah ring were arrested along with $65 million worth of cocaine.
The drugs, bound for Europe, the Middle East, and the rest of South America, were hidden in suitcases or in the stomachs of couriers. According to the police report, Ecuadorian airport officials were recruited or bribed so that the smugglers could evade security checks.
Dismantling this network is a victory in both the war on drugs and war on terror, but proves that the threat posed by Middle East terrorist networks that use countries throughout the world as hubs for fundraising and recruitment purposes is very real. For more on the threat of the cooperation between drug trafficking wings and terrorist networks, read “Hezbollah: Financing Terror Through Criminal Enterprise.”
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