How Trump Can Repair The Damage From Obama's Narcoterror Fail

Jonathan Schancer at the New York Post offers a piece on how President Trump can repair the damage the Obama administration caused by derailing a major DEA operation so they could have their Iran nuclear deal.

The Obama White House systematically dismantled a top-secret government initiative called Project Cassandra, which was designed to target Hezbollah’s $1 billion in annual drug proceeds. The gripping story, by Politico’s Josh Meyer, lays bare the details of the Lebanese terrorist group’s cocaine and crime schemes, and suggests Obama allowed the activities to continue so as to not upset Iran, Hezbollah’s patron, amidst nuclear negotiations.

Put aside for a moment that Obama may have provided a glide path to a terror group’s drug activities so he could pursue a deeply flawed nuclear deal that only paused Iran’s march to the bomb, yet yielded this state sponsor of terrorism some $150 billion. We’re now faced with the urgent challenge of trying to rebuild a government bureaucracy that was gutted.

Here’s what needs to happen.

First, President Trump has yet to choose a new chief for the Drug Enforcement Administration. This is an urgent need. And as my colleague Emanuele Ottolenghi noted last month in The Hill, the new pick must appreciate “the growing convergence between transnational organized crime and terrorist groups like Hezbollah.”

Once the right person is in place, we need to revitalize the agency. Yes, that means more money and jumpstarting the interagency task force that fights narco-terrorism abroad.

But perhaps more important, we need to clarify the DEA’s mission. This crucial component of the bureaucracy needs to focus less on domestic gangs (let law enforcement do that) and get back to the business of fighting our drug wars abroad — where they can actually be won.

From there, the Treasury Department needs to swing into action. Hezbollah is already sanctioned under our terrorism program. But it must be named as a Transnational Criminal Organization and slapped with a Kingpin Act designation. This will give our economic-warfare fighters additional tools to target the group for its drug and other criminal enterprises.

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

https://nypost.com/2017/12/18/how-trump-can-repair-the-damage-from-obamas-narcoterror-fail/

You can also read my Counterterrorism magazine piece on the DEA’s fight against narco terrorists, drug lords and death merchants via the below link:

http://www.pauldavisoncrime.com/2012/05/narco-terrorists-drug-lords-and-death.html 

The Secret Backstory Of How Obama Let Hezbollah Off The Hook: An ambitious U.S. Task Force Targeting Hezbollah's Billion-Dollar Criminal Enterprise Ran Headlong Into The White House's Desire For A Nuclear Deal With Iran.

Josh Meyer at POLITICO offers a piece on how the Obama administration killed a major DEA operation against the Hezbollah terrorist group, who are major drug traffickers, so Obama could get his Iran nuclear deal (and to his mind, his august place in history).

In its determination to secure a nuclear deal with Iran, the Obama administration derailed an ambitious law enforcement campaign targeting drug trafficking by the Iranian-backed terrorist group Hezbollah, even as it was funneling cocaine into the United States, according to a POLITICO investigation.

The campaign, dubbed Project Cassandra, was launched in 2008 after the Drug Enforcement Administration amassed evidence that Hezbollah had transformed itself from a Middle East-focused military and political organization into an international crime syndicate that some investigators believed was collecting $1 billion a year from drug and weapons trafficking, money laundering and other criminal activities.

Over the next eight years, agents working out of a top-secret DEA facility in Chantilly, Virginia, used wiretaps, undercover operations and informants to map Hezbollah’s illicit networks, with the help of 30 U.S. and foreign security agencies.

They followed cocaine shipments, some from Latin America to West Africa and on to Europe and the Middle East, and others through Venezuela and Mexico to the United States. They tracked the river of dirty cash as it was laundered by, among other tactics, buying American used cars and shipping them to Africa. And with the help of some key cooperating witnesses, the agents traced the conspiracy, they believed, to the innermost circle of Hezbollah and its state sponsors in Iran.

They followed cocaine shipments, tracked a river of dirty cash, and traced what they believed to be the innermost circle of Hezbollah and its state sponsors in Iran.

But as Project Cassandra reached higher into the hierarchy of the conspiracy, Obama administration officials threw an increasingly insurmountable series of roadblocks in its way, according to interviews with dozens of participants who in many cases spoke for the first time about events shrouded in secrecy, and a review of government documents and court records. When Project Cassandra leaders sought approval for some significant investigations, prosecutions, arrests and financial sanctions, officials at the Justice and Treasury departments delayed, hindered or rejected their requests.

The Justice Department declined requests by Project Cassandra and other authorities to file criminal charges against major players such as Hezbollah’s high-profile envoy to Iran, a Lebanese bank that allegedly laundered billions in alleged drug profits, and a central player in a U.S.-based cell of the Iranian paramilitary Quds force. And the State Department rejected requests to lure high-value targets to countries where they could be arrested.

The money, allegedly laundered through the Lebanese Canadian Bank and two exchange houses, involved approximately 30 U.S. car buyers.

“This was a policy decision, it was a systematic decision,” said David Asher

Veteran U.S. illicit finance expert sent from Pentagon to Project Cassandra to attack the alleged Hezbollah criminal enterprise., who helped establish and oversee Project Cassandra as a Defense Department illicit finance analyst. “They serially ripped apart this entire effort that was very well supported and resourced, and it was done from the top down.”

The untold story of Project Cassandra illustrates the immense difficulty in mapping and countering illicit networks in an age where global terrorism, drug trafficking and organized crime have merged, but also the extent to which competing agendas among government agencies — and shifting priorities at the highest levels — can set back years of progress.

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

https://www.politico.com/interactives/2017/obama-hezbollah-drug-trafficking-investigation/