Kuwait’s State Security Service announced it had dismantled a financing network linked to a banned organization, arresting four individuals accused of funding activities aimed at undermining national security. While the Interior Ministry did not name the group or the nationalities of those detained, informed Kuwaiti sources confirmed to Asas Media that the network was tied to Hezbollah and described the case as “serious and complex,” involving both Lebanese and Kuwaiti nationals.

The arrests come five months after Kuwait’s Interior Minister Sheikh Fahd Al-Yousef Al-Sabah declared from Beirut that there would be “zero tolerance” for any Hezbollah-related activities in the country. 

In a statement released late Thursday, the Interior Ministry said security forces “succeeded in dismantling a terrorist financing network affiliated with a banned party seeking to harm Kuwait’s security and destabilize its public order.”

According to the statement, “intelligence investigations revealed that the suspects were smuggling medicines and funds outside the country to support and finance the terrorist organization.” The ministry added that field surveillance operations “led to the arrest of several suspects and the discovery of evidence confirming their involvement in suspicious financial activities, including facilitating the operations of a private hospital pharmacy to serve the party’s purposes.”

The ministry did not disclose the names of the suspects or the hospital in question but released a video showing the raid, with four blindfolded detainees in prison uniforms.

Sources familiar with the matter told Asas Media that the suspects include one Lebanese national, identified by his initials A.N., and three Kuwaitis, identified as T.J., Kh.J., and S.Q. The investigation remains ongoing amid unconfirmed reports of additional arrests and two Lebanese suspects currently believed to be in Beirut.

The charges reportedly center on “managing suspicious activities through the funding and supply of medical equipment, medicines, and materials to support the party, directly or via a third country,” along with “suspicions related to the movement of funds between Kuwait and Lebanon.”

The hospital at the center of the investigation is said to be one of Kuwait’s largest, established in the 1960s and expanded in the early 1990s and after 2003. Sources said Lebanese administrator A.N. joined the institution in the early 2010s and played a key role in its growth, helping it become one of the country’s top private hospitals.

Security officials are maintaining strict confidentiality around the probe given its complexity. According to the same sources, Kuwait intends to coordinate with Lebanese authorities, as several Lebanese nationals are reportedly under scrutiny.