Mohammad Bazzi: West Africa-Based Hezbollah Money Launderer Arrested and Extradited

Mohammad Bazzi: West Africa-Based Hezbollah Money Launderer Arrested and Extradited

Executive Summary

• Mohammad Ibrahim Bazzi is a prominent Hezbollah financier who operated money laundering schemes across Europe, West Africa, and the Middle East. He was arrested in Romania in February 2023 and subsequently extradited to the United States. The arrest of Bazzi and several other major Hezbollah financiers cuts into one of the group’s key sources of funding.
• As The Gambia’s honorary consul to Lebanon from 2005–2017, Bazzi established close ties with the then-president of Gambia and exploited his diplomatic position to secure lucrative telecom and fuel contracts that enabled him to transfer more than $100 million to Hezbollah.

Mohammad Ibrahim Bazzi is an influential Hezbollah financier who has operated in Europe, West Africa, and the Middle East. Born in Bint Jbeil, Lebanon on August 10, 1964, Bazzi has held passports from at least five different countries: Lebanon, Belgium, the United Kingdom, Sierra Leone, and The Gambia (Rewards for Justice, 2018).

Bazzi ran extensive money laundering operations to fund Hezbollah in Belgium, Sierra Leone, The Gambia, Côte d’Ivoire, Benin, and Lebanon. These operations funneled millions of dollars to Hezbollah. Bazzi’s business activities included import/export, petroleum products, energy products, financial services, and investment. Further, he engaged in business with the Ayman Joumaa Organization, a South America-based Hezbollah drug trafficking network (US Department of the Treasury, May 2018).

In May 2018, the US Department of the Treasury identified Bazzi as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT) for providing financial support to Hezbollah. Bazzi was detained by Romanian authorities in February 2023, and has since been extradited to the United States. Bazzi was one of the most prominent Hezbollah financiers wanted by the United States.

The Gambian Connection

Bazzi’s work in The Gambia reveals much about Hezbollah’s presence and intentions in West Africa. Bazzi had been deported from Sierra Leone, where his family had business ties, for trading in “blood diamonds” and interfering in the country’s domestic politics. He later moved to The Gambia in 2000 or 2001, where his most important work for Hezbollah occurred (Foroyaa, September 2019).

Bazzi was provided with the opportunity to gain significant influence in The Gambia in 2005, when he was appointed as that country’s honorary consul for Lebanon. For 12 years, Bazzi exploited this position to further Hezbollah’s interests in the country. As honorary consul, he established a close relationship with then-Gambian President Yahya Jammeh, which allowed Hezbollah to benefit from Gambian taxpayer funds. Bazzi’s companies were awarded contracts that were paid for using withdrawals from the Central Bank of the Gambia (AP News, March 2019).

Through Bazzi’s influence in The Gambia, Hezbollah was able to indirectly dominate Gambia’s fuel sector through Bazzi’s Global Trading Group and Euro African Group companies. While accurate estimations of Hezbollah funding from Gambian sources are hard to determine, contracts with The Gambia’s telecommunications industry alone saw over $100 million transferred to Hezbollah (OCCRP, March 2019). It was not only funding for Hezbollah that Bazzi could gain through his position, however, because his diplomatic activities also benefitted Hezbollah’s patron, Iran. In 2011, Bazzi coordinated between Iran and then-President Jammeh to re-establish diplomatic ties between Gambia and Tehran just one year after they had been severed (Iran Focus, November 23, 2010).

Hezbollah’s exploitation of diplomatic positions is a common tactic. Ali Saade, Lebanon’s honorary consul to Guinea, has also worked to fund Hezbollah by transferring money from that country (OCCRP, January 12). Honorary consulship aids Hezbollah’s expansion into third countries: Consuls can operate under the protection of international law, which, among other benefits, means that a consul’s correspondence cannot be seized. The use of the West African–Lebanese diaspora allows Hezbollah to launder the estimated billions of dollars of profit the group earns from its South American drug trade. This is done primarily through businesses set up by Lebanese expats (European Foundation for Democracy, August 2022).

Bazzi’s Arrest and Its Implications

Romanian law enforcement arrested Bazzi in Bucharest on February 24, 2023. He was extradited to the United States in April 2023 and is now awaiting trial. He is currently charged with conspiring to induce an American to liquidate their interest in real estate assets in Michigan and subsequently transfer the proceeds to Bazzi in Lebanon through fictitious purchases in China, Lebanon, and Kuwait (Arab News, February 25). Bazzi’s arrest marks a significant success for the United States. Bazzi had been part of a ring of key Hezbollah drug traffickers and money launderers; this circle includes Joumaa, al-Din, and Adham Tabaja, who were all targeted by the US Drug Enforcement Agency’s “Project Cassandra” as far back as 2008 (Daraj, December 2022).

Bazzi’s case sends the message that Hezbollah financiers will eventually be caught, no matter how long it takes. While Iran has provided—and will continue to provide—the majority of Hezbollah’s funding, financiers such as Bazzi represent an important diversification of the group’s source of income. As such, money laundering on the scale performed by Bazzi and others reduces the effectiveness of US sanctions on the Iranian economy, as well as their intended second-level impact on Tehran’s funding to Hezbollah.

Conclusion

The carelessness showcased by Bazzi in the events leading to his arrest is remarkable. Bazzi attempted to launder money through a US citizen, which made him vulnerable to arrest. Bazzi surely should have known that a terrorist suspect operating in the United States would be extremely risky to transact with due to the ease of phone tapping and other forms of surveillance. Additionally, the risk of the operation far outweighed its benefits, with only hundreds of thousands of dollars at stake (Iran International, February 25).

Bazzi is not the only Hezbollah financier to have been arrested for attempting to operate in the United States. Kassim Tajideen, a similarly prominent Hezbollah financier in The Gambia, was arrested in 2017 after he had attempted to purchase frozen poultry from US companies. If Hezbollah financiers wish to continue operating in a meaningful way for the group, then they will need to become more evasive.