Intelbrief / With Maduro Gone, What Happens to Hezbollah’s Presence in Venezuela?

(AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos)

Bottom Line Up Front

Over the years, Hezbollah has found a comfortable home in Venezuela, where its operatives provide logistical support and serve as a critical facilitation node in the organization’s global structure.
Under the Maduro regime, Hezbollah had a direct line to Venezuelan government officials who assisted the group with procuring official identification documents (including passports) and helped with access to legitimate bank accounts that facilitated drug smuggling and money laundering operations.
Hezbollah operatives in Venezuela are a critical node in a corruption-fueled crime-terror nexus that includes cocaine trafficking and weapons smuggling.
For a long time now, Hezbollah enjoyed diplomatic cover in Venezuela, but with Maduro gone and the United States more closely involved, this dynamic is certain to change.

As part of its evolution over decades, the Shia militant organization Lebanese Hezbollah has diversified its revenue streams and also greatly expanded its geographic reach. Most times, those two occurred together, as Hezbollah tapped into criminal schemes ranging from West Africa to Latin America. The group has long operated out of South America’s notorious tri-border area, or ‘Triple Frontier,’ where Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay converge, serving as a regional headquarters to a range of terrorist groups, global criminal organizations, and other violent non-state actors engaged in illicit ventures such as drug trafficking, counterfeiting, and arms smuggling. In 2023, Brazilian authorities disrupted a Hezbollah plot to bomb Jewish targets.

Within Venezuela, Hezbollah operatives made Margarita Island into one of its mainstays, taking advantage of the area’s status as a tourist area and duty-free zone. The area is known for its cash-intensive businesses, plausible cover for imports and exports, informal remittance-like flows, and transient travel patterns, all of which make it an ideal hub for the militant group. Hezbollah has also reportedly engaged in military training activities on Margarita Island. Dating back close to two decades, there have been numerous United States Treasury Department designations of Hezbollah-linked individuals operating with ties to Venezuela, as well as sanctions against politicians and diplomats that are part of Hezbollah’s broader ecosystem. As the RAND Corporation stated in a March 2025 report, “The interplay between Iran’s state-level activities and Hezbollah’s operations underscores the complexity of the geopolitical landscape and the challenges in distinguishing between state and nonstate actor activities in the region.”

Over the years, Hezbollah has found a comfortable home in Venezuela, where its operatives provide logistical support and serve as a critical facilitation node in the organization’s global structure. Hezbollah’s presence in the country dates back to the 1980s, but the group grew more firmly entrenched after developing a relationship with the regime of Hugo Chavez, who came to power in 1999. The relationship was further strengthened in 2013, after the election of Nicolás Maduro, the leader of the regime, who was recently captured by U.S. Special Operations Forces and brought to the United States to face criminal charges for drug trafficking.

In Latin America, Hezbollah has benefited from the lawless nature of the tri-border area and Venezuela’s free trade zones. Hezbollah’s criminal operations in Venezuela include drug trafficking, money laundering, and illicit smuggling, extending the group’s reach throughout the region. According to Hezbollah expert Joseph Humire, who is performing the duties of Assistant Secretary of War for Homeland Defense and Americas Security Affairs, under the Maduro regime, Hezbollah had a direct line to Venezuelan government officials who assisted the group with its intelligence infrastructure, procuring official identification documents (including passports), and helping with access to legitimate bank accounts. In turn, this facilitated Hezbollah’s global operations, even as the group pursued criminal and terrorist activities with impunity worldwide.

Hezbollah’s presence in Venezuela was also mentioned by the U.S. Secretary of State following Washington’s operation to capture Maduro. Rubio said, “In the 21st century, under the Trump administration, we are not going to have a country like Venezuela in our own hemisphere, in the sphere of control and at the crossroads for Hezbollah, for Iran, and for every other malign influence in the world. That’s just not going to exist.” Hezbollah operatives in Venezuela are a critical node in a corruption-fueled crime-terror nexus that includes cocaine trafficking and weapons smuggling. With Maduro gone, Washington is going to press Venezuelan officials to evict Hezbollah members from the country. If U.S. pressure succeeds in jettisoning Hezbollah from its Venezuelan perch, it will be yet another blow to the group, which has suffered the targeted assassination of its Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah (and other top figures), the killing and maiming of commanders and foot soldiers in Israel’s September 2024 pager attack, and an Iranian regime under constant assault and in its weakest position in many years. In Lebanon, the group is coming under intense pressure to disarm.

Hezbollah’s privileged position in Venezuela was partially a byproduct of the close relationship between Caracas and Tehran. For a long time now, the group has enjoyed diplomatic cover and even used Venezuela’s state airline, CONVIASA, to facilitate its operations. But with Maduro gone and the United States more closely involved, this dynamic is certain to change. At the same time, with U.S. President Donald Trump ramping up pressure on Iran, threatening the possibility of military strikes, there is growing concern within the broader national security and counterterrorism community that Tehran could seek to use its Axis of Resistance proxies, including Hezbollah, to conduct acts of terrorism in response. These attacks could occur in the Middle East, or elsewhere, as happened in the past, when Lebanese Hezbollah was implicated in bombings in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 1992 and 1994, when the group targeted the Israeli embassy and a Jewish community center, respectively. Hezbollah has also been linked to terrorist plots and attacks in Bulgaria, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Kuwait, the United Kingdom, and Panama.

The Trump administration’s new national security strategy makes it clear that the United States seeks to fully dominate the Western Hemisphere. Accordingly, Washington will have zero tolerance for transnational terrorist groups operating from safe havens and sanctuaries in its near abroad. Hezbollah members who flee Venezuela may seek to relocate elsewhere in Latin America. Just last week, the U.S. was pressuring Bolivia to expel Iranian spies and to designate Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Hamas, and Hezbollah as terrorist organizations. As U.S. intelligence agencies begin operating more closely on the ground in Venezuela, Washington will be able to gain an even more granular picture of Iran’s malign influence in the region, to include its continued support of and relationship with terrorist groups, including Hezbollah, Hamas, Palestine Islamic Jihad, and others.