Commentary
In the hierarchy of security concerns on policymakers’ agendas, Hezbollah’s presence in Latin America rarely captures headlines. A recent RAND piece—“
Hezbollah’s Networks in Latin America”—finds that this oversight may prove increasingly costly as the organization adapts its regional strategy amid mounting financial and structural pressures. The implications for homeland security warrant consideration: Hezbollah’s Latin American networks could exploit cross-border vulnerabilities, manipulate existing trafficking routes into U.S. cities, and potentially leverage criminal networks for intelligence collection or operational support within the United States.
The October 2023 Hamas attacks on Israeli soil and subsequent escalation have dramatically altered regional dynamics, with recent Israeli strikes eliminating key Hezbollah leadership figures, including Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah. As the organization faces unprecedented operational constraints in Lebanon, Syria, and elsewhere, its Latin American networks—historically, used predominantly for fundraising—could become increasingly valuable for providing operational redundancy and alternative bases of operation far from its primary theater.
Proven Capability, Persistent Intent
Hezbollah’s Latin American footprint is neither new nor theoretical. The organization has maintained a presence in the region since the early 1980s, establishing networks that span at least 12 countries from Mexico to Argentina. Their composition—a complex web of direct operatives, ideological supporters, opportunistic criminal partners, and diaspora community members with varying degrees of organizational connection—makes these networks particularly challenging to counter.These diffuse networks have demonstrated both fundraising capacity and operational capability,
most devastatingly through the 1992 bombing of the Israeli embassy and the 1994 attack on the AMIA Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, which killed 85 people and injured more than 200.
More recently, in November 2023, Brazilian authorities
disrupted a suspected Hezbollah cell planning attacks against Jewish targets—just one month after the Oct. 7, 2023, attack in Israel. In 2024, Argentinian authorities
flagged possible Hezbollah activity at a high-volume port in Iquique, Chile, after spotting Assad Ahmad Barakat—one of Hezbollah’s most notorious money launderers. Though we cannot conclusively link the Brazilian plot and Barakat’s presence to changing dynamics in the Middle East, these developments suggest Hezbollah affiliates may be attempting to fill operational and funding gaps after incurring massive losses. Defense strategists should pay careful attention to the continuity of intent and the organization’s proven ability to execute high-casualty operations thousands of miles from Lebanon.
Although Hezbollah has historically received at least
70 percent of its funding from Iran, its Western Hemispheric networks provide critical supplementary revenue through sophisticated criminal enterprises. These
include drug trafficking, arms smuggling, document fraud, and money laundering operations, often conducted in partnership with local criminal organizations. The Ayman Joumaa network, for instance, laundered
hundreds of millions of dollars through cocaine trafficking and used car sales in the U.S. before the Department of Homeland Security’s Customs and Border Protection, Federal Bureau of Investigations, and other U.S. agencies disrupted its operations.
The terror-crime nexus may represent a strategic evolution rather than mere opportunism. By embedding itself within existing criminal ecosystems, Hezbollah simultaneously achieves multiple objectives: diversifying funding sources beyond Iranian patronage, establishing plausibly deniable operational capabilities, and developing relationships that could be leveraged for logistical support during heightened conflict.
Two geographical hubs have emerged as critical for Hezbollah’s regional presence: the Tri-Border Area—where Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay meet—and Venezuela under the Hugo Chávez and Nicolás Maduro regimes. Each offers distinct advantages. The Tri-Border Area provides a semi-lawless environment with limited law enforcement oversight—conditions that Hezbollah operatives exploited when planning and coordinating logistics for the 1994 Buenos Aires bombing. Venezuela, by contrast, offers
explicit state support, including political protection, passport provisioning, and transportation networks through state-owned enterprises like CONVIASA airline.
Venezuela’s strategic partnership with Iran, formalized in a
20-year cooperation agreement in 2022, has further strengthened Hezbollah’s position. Maduro explicitly aligned his country with Iran’s “Axis of Resistance,” creating an environment where Hezbollah operatives can move freely, access resources, and potentially develop operational capabilities with limited scrutiny.
Through a coordinated approach that includes cultural centers, educational scholarships, media operations like
HispanTV, and diplomatic infrastructure in Latin America, Iran more broadly cultivates influence that creates an environment potentially sympathetic to Hezbollah. The
2023 Spanish translation and distribution of Supreme Leader Khamenei’s memoir exemplifies Iran’s efforts to build regional, ideological connections—a pattern that mirrors Hezbollah’s historical development in Lebanon.
Extending beyond traditional diplomacy, Iranian embassies have
been identified in congressional testimony and regional security analyses as potential hubs for covert activities. Meanwhile, investigations have documented Iranian involvement in illegal gold mining operations in Venezuela’s
Orinoco Mining Arc, providing financial resources that could indirectly support Hezbollah’s regional networks.
The Information Deficit
Despite these concerning patterns, stakeholders rely on outdated public information to understand Hezbollah’s Latin American networks. The most recent unclassified analysis specifically addressing terrorist threats in Latin America, including Hezbollah, was published almost a
decade ago. The last focused public congressional hearing on Iran and Hezbollah in the Western Hemisphere occurred even earlier in
March 2015.
This knowledge gap isn’t merely an academic concern—it fundamentally undermines the nation’s operational effectiveness in combating terrorism, particularly at the U.S. southern border. Without a current, shared understanding of how Hezbollah’s networks function, agencies tend to focus on individual criminal cases rather than recognizing and disrupting the broader organizational infrastructure. Diminished public focus has additional consequences: the U.S. Departments of Homeland Security and Justice can struggle to build cases with dated evidence, financial institutions may lack current typologies to detect evolving money laundering schemes, and regional partners may operate with obsolete threat assessments that fail to capture new operational patterns. This fragmented approach allows Hezbollah affiliates to adapt quickly, replacing disrupted cells while maintaining strategic continuity.
As I detail in “Hezbollah’s Networks in Latin America,” robust unclassified analysis serves several critical functions beyond classified intelligence channels. It enables informed public discourse, supports legal proceedings, facilitates diplomatic engagement with regional partners, and helps counter potential disinformation campaigns. Enhanced public understanding through unclassified assessments can also build support for counterterrorism initiatives and foster international cooperation.
The volatility of Middle East dynamics, combined with increased U.S. support for Israel, creates conditions where Hezbollah might be more inclined to leverage its global networks more aggressively, including in Central and South America. While the organization may prioritize its immediate sphere of influence, its established Latin American infrastructure provides options for asymmetric responses that minimize direct escalation in the Middle East.
As policymakers put pen to paper on future security frameworks, understanding Hezbollah’s Latin American operations is a component that must not be overlooked. Moving beyond the historic pattern of exaggerating or dismissing the organization’s capabilities requires a comprehensive, evidence-based approach open to public audiences. Only through such rigorous, open-source analysis can a public understanding of these evolving threats be developed, leaving no significant vulnerabilities unaddressed at a moment when Hezbollah may be increasingly motivated to exploit them.
Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
