In about two months Donald Trump will start his second term‚ focusing on middle-east conflicts and terrorist financing. His team aims to cut-off money flows to iran-backed groups operating across different regions
The post oct-7 conflict showed how groups like Hezbollah and Hamas keep getting money despite sanctions: their income comes from various sources (drug trade illegal diamonds and crypto-currencies). Last fall Israeli forces hit Hezbollahs main cash source - the al-Qard al-Hasan group but the organization keeps working through other channels
These terror groups work like global businesses now; they get most funds from Iran (around $800mil yearly) but also run world-wide schemes. Hezbollah uses west-african countries to move drug money: they work with south-american cartels moving stuff through ivory coast and guinea. The group gets about 40% of its money from selling drugs
The newer problem is Captagon - a drug thats big in syria now. Its helping terror groups in two ways:
* Gives them lots of money
* Makes fighters less scared in battle
* Spreads fast across borders
* Easy to make and sell
Modern tech makes things harder for law enforcement. Hamas and other groups now use crypto-currencies and fake charities to get money; in fall-2023 argentina caught people sending about 2bil pesos to Hezbollah through bitcoin. The us treasury says Hamas gets like $10mil monthly just from fake charity groups
To fix this trump needs to work with countries where these groups operate - not just with americas friends. They should close drug labs (like jordan did this january) and track digital money better. Its gonna take team-work between different countries police and spy agencies to stop these money flows