Project Cassandra was a US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) operation that investigated the ties between the Hezbollah Lebanese Shia terrorist organization and drug trafficking connected to South America and around the world.
This all began with the assassination of Lebanese former President Rafik Hariri in 2005. It was commonly known that this had been carried out by a team of Hezbollah. To show its new-found strength Hezbollah attacked across the Israel border and kidnapped two IDF soldiers. This led in turn to the second Israel-Lebanon War of 2006, Lebanon and Hezbollah were decimated by the IDF and Lebanon was almost bankrupt. After some years signs of growth and building began to appear, and it was clear that this resulted from the influx of millions of dollars from Iran. Hezbollah was already a proxy of Iran, but by providing such funds Iran began in effect to take over Lebanon.
In investigating the source of Hezbollah’s new-found wealth, US agents discovered that money was also flowing into Lebanon, to Hezbollah, from South America and West Africa. In 2008, this led to the formation of the DEA Project Cassandra. The findings of this Operation were shown in a documentary with the same name “Project Cassandra” on the Deutsche Welle network (in English). To summarize, they found that Hezbollah became heavily involved in drug trafficking making hundreds of millions of dollars a year, through their contacts in Venezuela and Benin in West Africa.
In both cases Shia Lebanese emigrants to these countries played key roles. Drugs were shipped through Venezuela, with government involvement, to Europe and the US, where they were sold. This money was then laundered to buy thousands of cars, which were then shipped to West Africa, where they were sold and shipped out again, and the money was then transferred to Lebanon, to banks owned partly or fully by Hezbollah. The mastermind behind this arrangement was Imad Mugniyeh, Head of the Hezbollah armed forces. Strictly, any devout Muslim is not allowed to dabble in drugs, but Hezbollah still denies this.
In order to attempt to interdict this drug trade, the Canadian-Lebanon Bank that was the major conduit for the drug funds, was closed by the DEA. Also, in 2008, Imad Mugniyeh was assassinated in Damascus, Syria, by a joint Israeli-American operation. This led to an attempt in 2008 by Hezbollah to capture the whole of Beirut and take-over the government. This resulted in Hezbollah, that out-guns the Lebanese Army, joining the government and in effect taking over power in Lebanon. That situation persists until today, while Lebanon is more bankrupt than ever.
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