The Islamic Republic of Iran's Quds Force has smuggled over one billion dollars to Hezbollah through the United Arab Emirates since January of this year, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday, citing the US Treasury Department.
The Quds Force is a branch of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.
Hezbollah has been severely crippled in its war with Israel, and is "highly focused now on rebuilding,” the outlet quoted David Schenker, director of the program for Arab politics at the Washington Institute, as saying.
“Iran is not backing away from its commitment to its premier regional proxy," Schenker went on.
"One billion used to be their [Hezbollah's] entire annual budget, but after the war, they need a lot more,” Hanin Ghaddar, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute, was also quoted as saying.
The smuggling of IRGC funds comes in addition to Hezbollah's global funding methods, including the drug and diamond trade, and money laundering, the WSJ noted.
Iran seeks alternative method of smuggling funds
Since the fall of the Assad regime in Syria, the Lebanese ban on direct flights from Iran, and a crackdown on "couriers bringing suitcases of cash through the Beirut airport," Iran has had to heavily rely on alternative smuggling methods, the American outlet explained.
Earnings from Iranian oil sales are sent to "Iran-linked exchange shops, private companies, businessmen and couriers in Dubai," who then pass the funds on to smugglers in Lebanon to disburse the funds and settle accounts later, according to people familiar with the matter, including a senior US official, the WSJ said.
In addition to Dubai, the US is reportedly worried that funds are being smuggled to Hezbollah through Turkey and Iraq.
Though the UAE has a reputation as a "hub for illicit funds," the country is "committed to preventing misuse of its territory for illicit finance and was working with international partners to disrupt and deter it," a UAE official was cited by the outlet as saying.
Neither Hezbollah, the Lebanese prime minister's office, nor the Iranian delegation at the United Nations responded to the Wall Street Journal's requests for comments at the time of publication.