US Treasury Department imposes sanctions on oil smuggling network to Assad regime to fund Hezbollah
US Treasury Department imposed sanctions on individuals, companies, and vessels involved in smuggling oil and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) to Assad regime to generate revenues for the Lebanese Hezbollah.
The U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control confirmed that this network which consists of businessmen and Lebanese companies and supervises by a senior leader of Hezbollah finance team has facilitated dozens of LPG shipments to Assad regime and channeled the profits to Hezbollah.
The sanctions include Mohammad Ibrahim Habib al-Sayyid who supervises some Hezbollah’s oil business since late 2023, and Mohammad Qasim al-Bazzal who runs a channel to fund Hezbollah via gas smuggling, and Ali Nayef Zgheib who is a petroleum chemistry expert and plays a major role in facilitating oil and gas, and Boutros Georges Obeid who is a businessman and manages Hezbollah’s energy deals.
The sanctions include “HODICO” company and its subsidiaries, a company runs heavy oil distribution and provides a legal company for smuggling activities, in addition to “O.H.G. Holding SAL”, a company involved in commercial dealings with Hezbollah.
The sanctions include the vessels used in smuggling operations, ALPHA GAS and MARINA, which are owned by the al-Bazzal network, and which shipped dozens of LPG shipments to Syria to support Hezbollah’s financial activities.
The network has facilitated LPG shipments to Assad regime in cooperation with Assad regime official and businessman, Yasar Ibrahim, who was included by US Department of State on 20 August 2020 on the sanctions list for his rule in corrupted commercial transactions that benefited the head of the Syrian regime, Bashar al-Assad.
Yasar Ibrahim’s name began circulating for the first time in mid-2018, when he was assigned to follow up on the “Martyrs” Office in the Ministry of Defense, which provides aid to the families of those killed by the Syrian regime.
Ibrahim is known as an economic advisor to Bashar al-Assad and his wife Asma, and he runs an empire of companies after acquiring them from their owners, extending over many economic sectors such as communications, construction, real estate, oil, tourism and private security, some of which are registered in Syria and Lebanon, and others in the Cayman Islands of Britain.
US had previously sanctioned Ibrahim. The former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said about him that Ibrahim was sanctioned because of his efforts to prevent or obstruct a political solution to the Syrian conflict that broke out in 2011, pointing out that Ibrahim used his networks throughout the Middle East and beyond to conclude corrupt deals enriching Bashar al-Assad, while Syrians die from lack of food and medicine.
