The U.S. Treasury Department Wednesday announced sanctions against a Hezbollah oil and LPG smuggling network that allegedly facilitated shipments to the Syrian government. Hezbollah fighters stand next to the coffin of late senior Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr, killed in an Israeli strike, during the funeral procession in Beirut, Lebanon, Aug. 1,2024. File photo by Wael Hamzeh/ EPA-EFE
Sept. 11 (UPI) — The U.S. Treasury Department Wednesday announced sanctions on a Lebanese oil and liquified petroleum gas smuggling network that it said generated millions of dollars of revenue for Hezbollah.
Three individuals, five companies and two vessels were sanctioned. Treasury said they include Lebanese businessmen and companies “overseen by a senior leader of Hezbollah’s finance team.”
Profits from the smuggled oil and LPG allegedly went to Hezbollah, the Lebanon-based militant armed group supported by Iran.
“Hezbollah continues to launch rockets into Israel and fuel regional instability, choosing to prioritize funding violence over taking care of the people it claims to care about, including the tens of thousands displaced in southern Lebanon,” said Acting Under Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Bradley T. Smith in a statement. “Treasury will continue to disrupt the oil smuggling and other financing networks that support Hezbollah’s war machine.”
Sanctioned individuals were Muhammad Ibrahim Habib al-Sayyid, Ali Nayef Zgheib and Boutros Georges Obeid.
The Treasury Department described al-Sayyid as a Hezbollah official and Zgheib as a petroleum chemistry expert who allegedly assisted Hezbollah’s smuggling network. Obeid was involved in Hezbollah’s energy deals and jointly owns several companies with Zgheib, according to the Treasury Department.
The sanctioned companies are the Zgheib and Obeid-owned Heavy Oil Distribution Company S.A.L. along with several subsidiaries; Heavy Industrial Fuels SAL HIF and O.H.G. Holding SAL.
Two of the companies are sanctioned for “having materially assisted, sponsored, or provided financial, material, or technological support for, or goods or services to or in support of, Hezbollah.” The third company is sanctioned for being owned, controlled or directed by Obeid.
Two vessels, the tankers Alpha Gas and Marina, were sanctioned for allegedly being used in the Hezbollah oil and LPG smuggling network.
“This network has facilitated dozens of LPG shipments to the Government of Syria, working with Syrian regime official Yasser Ibrahim, who was designated by the Department of State on Aug. 20, 2020 for his role in corrupt business deals that benefitted Syrian President Assad,” the Treasury Department said in a statement.