Used cars, cargo, charcoal, electronics and shipping lines: the commercial goods and routes that investigators say carried value alongside ordinary trade. These articles follow the paperwork of commerce and ask what it does and does not show. Articles appear together on this page because they share a subject; that does not mean the people or organizations they describe worked together.
A DEA sting led Czech police to arrest Ali Fayad and two associates in 2014. While Czech courts weighed extradition, five Czechs were abducted in Lebanon; they came home the day Fayad was freed. The sting, the captivity, the exchange and what became of each defendant.
A civil forfeiture action in Manhattan traced at least $329 million in transfers from Lebanese exchange houses to American used-car dealers, linking car lots in Cotonou, the Lebanese Canadian Bank and cash couriers moving toward Beirut. The complaint, the bank’s sale, the escrow seizure and the $102 million settlement, and what each established.