Transnational Organized Crime – Threat to World Peace Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced this past Monday, Oct. 15, that Department of Justice (DOJ) is listing Hezbollah, a Lebanese base international terror organization as one of the top five transnational organized crime threats that will be targeted with the creation of a new DOJ task force. The other four (4) threats include: The international gang MS-13, and three (3) international drug cartels as the top transnational organized crime threats the United States faces. Based on the latest U.S. Gov’t figures, these groups are responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths throughout the world during this past decade.
For the past several years, I have had the honor to teach “Transnational Crime” a course I developed for the Massachusetts Maritime Academy on Cape Cod. The topics range from drug smuggling, maritime piracy, money laundering, human trafficking, cyber crime and terrorism. We also examine the effects globalization played in the birth and rise of Organized Transnational Crime and how these groups exploit trade, travel and telecommunications.
As we study terror, we spend hours examining the nexus or relationships between terror groups, Organized Transnational Crime groups and State Sponsors such as Iran who is responsible for funding, training and providing weapons to Hezbollah and other Middle East terror groups. Iran as vowed the death of Israel and is responsible for the deaths of many dozens of American Soldiers serving in Iraq, Afghanistan and Lebanon. As a nation, we must recognize that Iran poses a direct threat to our National Security.
I spent many years as a U.S. Special Agent preventing Iran from obtaining weapons of mass destruction. A terror nation, with nuclear capabilities who support other international terror groups, and are presently fighting in Yemen, Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq could lead to an armageddon. As a nation, we must do more to educate our citizens of the Iranian threat and how Transnational Organized Crime supports terror with funding, weapons and other logistical support.