![\"Nicolas](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/https:\/\/d1e00ek4ebabms.cloudfront.net\/production\/538951db-edd4-4512-bb96-fe6255f21bb7.jpg\")
Kidnapped Venezuelan President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro is taken to a New York court on January 5 for his first appearance on US federal charges \u00a9 Eduardo Munoz\/Reuters<\/p>\nAs foreign minister of Venezuela, Nicol\u00e1s Maduro travelled to Damascus in 2007 for a highly publicised meeting with then-president of Syria, Bashar al-Assad, en route to Tehran.<\/p>\n
Maduro was ostensibly in the region to strengthen his country\u2019s ties with others similarly hostile to Washington. But behind closed doors, his visit had another purpose: a secret meeting with a senior Hizbollah commander, integral to its overseas operations.<\/p>\n
The previously unreported encounter took place at a hotel in central Damascus, said three people with knowledge of the meeting, and would mark the first known instance of Maduro meeting directly with a member of the Lebanese militant group.<\/p>\n
Washington, particularly recent Republican administrations, has long accused Venezuelan officials of colluding with Hizbollah in drug trafficking operations and illicit finance, with several Maduro allies subject to criminal investigations by US authorities that cite such links.<\/p>\n
Those relationships face renewed scrutiny following Maduro\u2019s capture by US forces last week in a brazen pre-dawn raid on Caracas.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Maduro faces sweeping drug trafficking charges. In court in New York on Monday, he pleaded not guilty to four charges of narco-terrorism, conspiracy to import cocaine and possession of weapons.<\/p>\n
The indictment does not mention Hizbollah or Iran, but in an interview the day after Maduro\u2019s capture, US secretary of state Marco Rubio said Venezuela has \u201ccosied up to Hizbollah\u201d and its patron Tehran.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s very simple,\u201d Rubio said. \u201cIn 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 Hizbollah, for Iran and for every other malign influence in the world. That\u2019s just not going to exist.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hizbollah\u2019s Venezuelan connection sprang from a burgeoning relationship between Tehran and Caracas shaped by anti-US ideology and the impact of Washington\u2019s sanctions on both countries.<\/p>\n
Hizbollah, Iran\u2019s biggest proxy, developed relationships with government officials in Caracas under the late leader Hugo Ch\u00e1vez, which grew closer under Maduro, said an intelligence official and another person familiar with the situation.<\/p>\n
One of the people said: \u201cYou all of a sudden start seeing Hizbollah activities proliferate. We\u2019re talking drug trafficking, money laundering, schemes to obtain passports, arms, intelligence \u2014 all\u00a0orchestrated with diplomatic cover.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Hizbollah and Venezuelan authorities have always denied the claims.<\/p>\n
But multiple investigations and overt clues illustrate the depth of the relationships, which developed as Hizbollah took an entrepreneurial approach to activities such as money laundering and arms trafficking across the world.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Kidnapped Venezuelan President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro is taken to a New York court on January 5 for his first appearance on US federal charges \u00a9 Eduardo Munoz\/Reuters<\/p>\n
Jack Kelly, a retired agent for the US Drug Enforcement Administration who helped lead its investigation into Hizbollah and organised crime \u2014 dubbed \u201cProject Cassandra\u201d \u2014 said the agency found evidence that Hizbollah operatives were provided with Venezuelan passports, while Conviasa, Venezuela\u2019s state-owned airline, provided the group with logistical support.<\/p>\n
Project Cassandra was initiated in 2008 to investigate activities including drug trafficking, weapons smuggling and money laundering. Kelly said that around 2010, the DEA learned of cocaine loads being sent on Conviasa flights to Damascus, as well as large bulk shipments of hard currency.<\/p>\n
This, Kelly said, was to send on to Hizbollah-linked money exchanges in Lebanon. \u201cThat couldn\u2019t have happened without the Chavistas being aware of it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Roger Noriega, a former US assistant secretary of state for western hemisphere affairs, in 2012 testified that Conviasa operated regular flights from Caracas to Damascus and Tehran \u201cproviding Iran, Hizbollah, and associated narco-traffickers a surreptitious means to move personnel, weapons, contraband and other materiel\u201d.<\/p>\n
Much of the evidence of links between Hizbollah and Venezuela dates from Project Cassandra, one of the most comprehensive criminal investigations into the Lebanese group\u2019s international ties.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But Hizbollah\u2019s relationships in Venezuela appear to have continued since that probe, which ended in 2016. <\/p>\n
A complaint filed in a US federal court against the cryptocurrency exchange Binance in December alleged that Venezuela-based, Hizbollah-linked gold smugglers and money launderers had moved tens of millions of dollars in crypto through the exchange.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Binance said in response to the case that it fully complied with \u201cinternationally recognised sanctions laws\u201d.<\/p>\n
In one of its most significant findings, Project Cassandra uncovered links between a high-ranking Hizbollah official and a Medell\u00edn-based Lebanese drug kingpin with ties to the militant group, Ayman Jomaa. <\/p>\n
Jomaa was accused of running one of the largest and most sophisticated international drug smuggling and money laundering networks, involving Colombia and Venezuela, that the DEA had ever seen.<\/p>\n
In his testimony, Noriega stated that \u201cVenezuela has provided thousands of phone IDs, passports and visas to persons of Middle Eastern origin\u201d \u2014 claims echoed to the FT by ex-US officials and the intelligence official.<\/p>\n
![\"Tareck](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/https:\/\/d1e00ek4ebabms.cloudfront.net\/production\/acac8091-4e20-4150-8e36-3b400b95cbe5.jpg\")
Tareck El Aissami, centre, is a former vice-president of Venezuela who has been indicted on corruption and sanctions-dodging charges in the US \u00a9 AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n
Tareck El Aissami, a former Maduro confidant and vice-president sanctioned by the US, Canada and the EU, was key to the passports scheme, said the person familiar with the situation. El Aissami has been indicted on corruption and sanctions-dodging charges in the US.<\/p>\n
At the same time, investigators saw striking images of Hizbollah fighters in Venezuela. Kelly said that the DEA around 2010 saw credible evidence that operatives from the militant group were present.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe saw pictures of Hizbollah fighters on rooftops in Margarita Island with long guns training in urban warfare,\u201d he said.\u00a0Margarita Island, a duty-free zone off the coast, is a hub of Hizbollah financial activity, said the intelligence official, and is home to a large Lebanese diaspora community.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Another former US official also said they had seen evidence of Hizbollah fighters wearing fatigues in Venezuela around the same time.<\/p>\n
Some members of the Trump administration have described these as training camps, but Matthew Levitt, a former counterterrorism official with the FBI and US Treasury, now an expert on Hizbollah\u2019s global reach, said that was an exaggeration. \u201cHizbollah has a very deep history in Venezuela\u2009.\u2009.\u2009.\u2009It doesn\u2019t need to run training camps to maintain a presence there.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Then](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/https:\/\/d1e00ek4ebabms.cloudfront.net\/production\/fd5e17e0-6eab-43a8-9052-88575fd64982.jpg\")
As foreign minister of Venezuela, Nicol\u00e1s Maduro travelled to Damascus in 2007 for a highly publicised meeting with then-president of Syria, Bashar al-Assad \u00a9 Sana\/Reuters<\/p>\n
At times Hizbollah, which was founded in the early 1980s, turned to the sizeable Lebanese diaspora community in Latin America for support, relying on clan-based networks for funding and help concealing illicit business activities, either voluntarily or through coercion.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cSome of [Maduro\u2019s] confidants and most trusted fixers were from those clans,\u201d said the intelligence official.<\/p>\n
As early as 2008, the US Treasury sanctioned Ghazi Nasr Al Din, a Venezuelan diplomat who worked at the embassies in Damascus and Beirut and \u201cutilised his position [\u2026] to provide financial support to Hizbollah\u201d.<\/p>\n
A 2020 Atlantic Council report written by an analyst who has since joined Trump\u2019s Department of Defense identified the Nasr Al Din clan as one of three \u201cembedded into the Maduro regime bureaucracy [\u2026] who provided protection and resources to Hizbollah\u201d.<\/p>\n
Adel El Zabayar, a close Maduro ally, was indicted by the US DoJ in 2020 on narco-terrorism charges and was accused of links to Hizbollah, including appearing in propaganda videos for the group.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Trump administration officials have also made claims with little evidence that Hizbollah planned to use Venezuela as a basis for what would be unprecedented direct attacks on the US.<\/p>\n
The Republican chair of the House foreign affairs committee, Brian Mast, on Monday night claimed Maduro had allowed Hizbollah to use Venezuela \u201cas a base for espionage and kinetic operations against the US\u201d. <\/p>\n
Legal cases have also alleged Venezuelan links with the Palestinian militant group Hamas, with little supporting evidence.<\/p>\n
At the same time there are signs that Hizbollah\u2019s Venezuela connections have endured.<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/https:\/\/d1e00ek4ebabms.cloudfront.net\/production\/4cb48fb8-4565-4083-854b-cf9b7723c82b.jpg\")
People celebrate while holding Palestinian and Hizbollah flags at an outdoor event in Caracas \u00a9 Ariana Cubillos\/AP<\/p>\n