Europe

Robert Pelikán, Czech justice minister
EuropeInvestigations and enforcementMoney launderingNetwork study

What Europe’s Hezbollah Cases Actually Decided

On a cold late-November afternoon in 2018, inside the storied corridors of the Palais de…

View of the port of Salerno
Case fileEuropeLebanon and SyriaLogistics and shipping

Salerno, 2020: Eighty-Four Million Pills and the Wrong Name

When Italian customs officers pried open three commercial cargo containers inside the sun-baked port of…

Port infrastructure at Maasvlakte in Rotterdam
EuropeLogistics and shippingMoving the money

The Cocaine Gates—and the Money That Left by Another Door

When the refrigerated container arrived at the port of Rotterdam in the dead heat of…

Entrance of the Federal Administrative Court in Leipzig
Case fileEuropeInvestigations and enforcementMoney laundering

Germany Followed the Cash. Then It Followed the Files.

When German customs investigators unzipped the luggage of two Lebanese travelers during a routine airport checkpoint in early 2015, they…

General cargo being handled beside a ship and trucks at the port of Cotonou.
BrokerageCase fileEuropeInvestigations and enforcementLebanon and SyriaMoney launderingMoving the moneyProcurementUnited StatesWest Africa

The Fee for Getting It Through

An undercover DEA operation tested Lebanese lawyer Joseph Asmar and facilitator Iman Kobeissi with cash presented as cocaine proceeds, from…

Robert Pelikán, Czech justice minister
Case fileEuropeInvestigations and enforcementLebanon and SyriaMoney launderingMoving the moneyProcurementTrade and transportUnited StatesWest Africa

The Arms Deal That Became a Hostage Bargain

A DEA sting led Czech police to arrest Ali Fayad and two associates in 2014. While Czech courts weighed extradition,…

Official portrait of Treasury official Marshall Billingslea.
ColombiaCurrency exchangeEuropeInvestigations and enforcementLebanon and SyriaMoney launderingMoving the moneyProfileVenezuela

The Half-Hour Before the Sanctions

In 2019 the US Treasury sanctioned Kassem Chams and his licensed exchange house in Chtaura, Lebanon, alleging drug-proceeds laundering and…