The Colón Free Zone and the trading companies registered there. Panama appears in these cases as a hub for import-export businesses that US authorities alleged were used to move value for trafficking organizations.
Operation Titan grew from a Miami laundering inquiry into a Colombian–US case against Chekri Mahmoud Harb, a Bogotá broker accused of moving cocaine and its proceeds. The undercover contacts, the trade-based return routes, the arrests and the narcotics plea, kept distinct from the Hezbollah financing allegation.
Ayman Joumaa was designated by the US Treasury in 2011 and indicted the same year on charges of coordinating cocaine shipments for Mexico’s Los Zetas and laundering the proceeds. This article follows the designation, the indictment and the Lebanese Canadian Bank case built around West African car lots, and separates what officials alleged about Hezbollah from what any court found.