American law enforcement efforts have become increasingly multifaceted as the government attempts to combat the continuing ingenuity and sophistication of transnational organized criminal groups. Since the publication of the first post in this series, the U.S. government has announced several significant actions taken against transnational organized crime groups. The Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) promulgated a slew of sanctions against the financial networks of both Hezbollah and Cártel de Jalisco Nueva Generación (CJNG). The Justice Department announced takedowns of drug trafficking rings spanning the U.S. and Mexico as well as a large-scale organized cybercrime ring composed of members from several Eastern European countries.
Organized Crime by Established National Security Threats
Hezbollah
On April 11, OFAC declared Kassem Chams, a Lebanese national, to be a specially designated narcotics trafficker and money launderer for Hezbollah—accompanying that designation with sanctions against both Chams personally and his company, Chams Exchange. OFAC asserted that the Chams Exchange was a money laundering enterprise through which Chams moved tens of millions of dollars every month for Hezbollah, the Colombian cartel La Oficina de Envigado and drug money launderer Ayman Said Joumaa, who himself was sanctioned by OFAC under the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act (Kingpin Act) in 2011. According to OFAC, Chams’s reach was global: He allegedly moved illicit funds across Australia, Colombia, Italy, Lebanon, the Netherlands, Spain, Venezuela, France, Brazil and the United States. A diagram depicting the full scope of his network can be found transnational organized crime national security hezbollah hackers corruption
