Lessons from the Syria-Hezbollah Criminal Syndicate, 1985–2005

Hezbollah, founded with the intention of destroying Israel, has long engaged in illicit efforts to amass resources the size of some states’ coffers. The Lebanese group's long-running global criminal syndicate with the Assad regime, initially forged in the 1980s, more recently allowed it to fight for more than a decade in the Syrian conflict and to launch attacks on Israel for more than a year during the Gaza war. This article traces the roots of Hezbollah's illicit financial operations, focusing on its collaboration with high-ranking Syrian officers and officials during their country's intervention in Lebanon. It leverages declassified IDF and CIA intelligence reports, Israeli and US government documents, and media reports in Arabic and Hebrew to reveal how the Hezbollah-Syrian partnership engaged in global drug trafficking, currency counterfeiting, and money laundering, then repatriated the earnings. The analysis then suggests how countermeasures used in the past could be repurposed to combat Hezbollah's financing for terrorism and military buildup, and it proposes some new methods, as well.