Venezuela has become a key crossroads for overlapping international and regional interests, as years of political instability and economic collapse have opened space for covert financial and security networks linked to Iran and Lebanon’s Hezbollah, according to a report published by Nidaa Al-Watan. 

Despite the fall of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro’s rule and his detention, the country remains mired in a severe economic crisis, with its population facing shortages and hyperinflation. Behind the scenes, however, remnants of the governing system have continued to rely on clandestine alliances involving businessmen, armed groups and foreign actors to sustain influence and protect assets. Chief among these networks are those tied to Tehran and Hezbollah, which have exploited Venezuela’s economic disarray to expand their footprint across Latin America and beyond.

The Rise of Alex Saab

At the center of this web is Alex Saab, a Lebanese businessman born in Colombia to a family of Lebanese origin, who rose to prominence as a pivotal financial operator for Venezuela’s ruling elite.

Saab was born in Barranquilla, Colombia, where his father founded a successful textile company, Textiles Saab. Educated at the German School in Barranquilla, Saab entered business early, selling promotional products before expanding into fashion and professional clothing. By the early 2000s, he had built a network of export companies in Colombia that capitalized on Venezuela’s preferential currency system, particularly the CADIVI mechanism, which allocated foreign exchange at government-set rates.

Over time, Saab emerged as one of the most prominent beneficiaries of Venezuela’s distorted exchange-rate regime. Subsequent journalistic investigations, however, linked him to suspicious activities involving money laundering and smuggling through fictitious exports.

Saab made a decisive move into Venezuela in 2009, securing a major government contract to build 25,000 housing units. Media reports described the project as heavily inflated, relying on unrealistic financing terms enabled by Venezuela’s economic framework. Around the same time, Saab forged close ties with senior figures in the regime, including relatives of President Maduro’s wife—known locally as Los Chamos—as well as then–Vice President Tareck El Aissami.

By 2011, Saab’s influence had grown further. He signed a $685 million contract under Venezuela’s flagship “Great Housing Mission” to construct prefabricated homes. Although his lawyers denied a direct link to the implementing company, investigative reports showed that Saab received $159 million for importing construction materials that were never fully delivered, raising serious concerns about transparency and fraud.

A Global Financial Web

Attempts to shut down investigations in Colombia and Ecuador into alleged money laundering through fake exports worth more than $130 million failed to stop scrutiny of Saab’s operations. Evidence accumulated pointing to sophisticated international schemes involving corruption, offshore intermediaries and digital assets.

According to investigators, Saab’s companies used complex structures to move funds through third countries, including Turkey and the United Arab Emirates. These operations reportedly involved cryptocurrency transfers, with unofficial estimates suggesting Saab had access to digital wallets holding up to $60 billion in bitcoin.

Project Cassandra and Hezbollah Links

The British Financial Times has reported that U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) investigators uncovered deep links between Venezuela and Hezbollah as part of Project Cassandra, a long-running probe launched in 2008 into the militant group’s global criminal activities.

Jack Kelly, a retired DEA agent who helped lead the investigation, said the agency found evidence that Hezbollah operatives had been issued Venezuelan passports and received logistical support from Conviasa, Venezuela’s state-owned airline.

Around 2010, the DEA learned that cocaine shipments were being transported on Conviasa flights to Damascus, along with large transfers of hard currency. The proceeds were then funneled to Hezbollah-linked money exchangers in Lebanon, Kelly said.

“That couldn’t have happened without the knowledge of the Chavistas,” Kelly said, referring to officials aligned with Venezuela’s socialist leadership.

Roger Noriega, a former U.S. assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs, testified in 2012 that Conviasa operated regular flights from Caracas to Damascus and Tehran, providing Iran, Hezbollah and affiliated drug traffickers with a covert means of moving personnel, weapons and contraband.

Crypto, Gold and Sanctions Evasion

According to the Financial Times, a complaint filed last December in U.S. federal court against cryptocurrency exchange Binance alleged that Venezuela-based smugglers and money launderers linked to Hezbollah moved tens of millions of dollars through the platform. Binance said it complies fully with internationally recognized sanctions laws.

Another Financial Times investigation found that Venezuela-based crypto accounts had transacted with digital wallets later linked to Tawfiq al-Law, a U.S.-sanctioned Syrian accused of transferring illicit funds for Hezbollah, Iran-backed Houthi forces in Yemen, and a company tied to Syria’s former Assad regime.

Iran has also played a direct role in Venezuela’s survival under sanctions. In 2020, Tehran supplied fuel and technical assistance to rehabilitate Venezuelan refineries under gold-for-fuel agreements, exchanging gasoline for shipments of Venezuelan gold and further cementing ties between the two sanctioned states.

Criminal Networks and Key Figures

One of Project Cassandra’s most significant findings was the exposure of links between a senior Hezbollah official and Ayman Joumaa, a Lebanese drug kingpin based in Medellín. Joumaa is accused of running one of the largest and most complex international drug trafficking and money laundering networks ever uncovered by the DEA, spanning Colombia and Venezuela.

U.S. authorities have also accused Adel El Zabayar, a close ally of Maduro, of narco-terrorism. Indicted in 2020, El Zabayar was alleged to have ties to Hezbollah, including appearances in propaganda videos.

Other figures identified in investigations include Majed Khalil Majzoub, a Lebanese-Venezuelan businessman with companies in Venezuela, the United States and Panama, and his brother Khaled Khalil Majzoub. Both were cited in multiple probes into money laundering, arms trafficking and drug smuggling linked to the Maduro system.

Ghazi Nasr al-Din, a former Venezuelan diplomat in Damascus, was accused by U.S. authorities of recruiting Venezuelans of Arab origin for training at Hezbollah camps in Lebanon and facilitating logistical coordination between the group and its financial backers in Venezuela.

Tareck El Aissami, Venezuela’s former vice president for economic affairs, was also described by investigators as a key facilitator, accused of enabling cooperation with Hezbollah in arms and drug trafficking and overseeing passport schemes that allowed individuals of Lebanese, Iranian and Syrian origin to travel abroad under altered identities.

Together, these cases illustrate how Venezuela, battered by sanctions and internal collapse, became a permissive environment for transnational criminal and militant networks, thus linking Latin America to the Middle East through finance, logistics and ideology.