The U.S. Department of the Treasury has sanctioned four people and a company named “Global Cleaners S.A.R.L.” for their ties to terrorism finance.
Treasury found that Global Cleaners was supporting known Hezbollah terrorist and financier Adham Tabaja, by providing his company, Al-Inmaa Engineering and Contracting LLC, with financial services. The four individuals, Muhammad al-Mukhtar Kallas, Hasan Jamal-al-Din, Yosef Ayad and Muhammad Ghaleb Hamdar, were found responsible for supporting Hezbollah with financial services and the planning of terrorist activities.
Global Cleaners S.A.R.L. was designated for being owned or controlled by Tabaja, according to the Treasury Department’s press release Thursday. The company is managed by Tabaja under his Al-Inmaa Group of companies. Global Cleaners had apparently obtained “lucrative contracts to provide sanitation services” in Iraq.
Treasury noted that “all property and interests in property” belonging to Global Cleaners and the four individuals under U.S. jurisdiction are blocked and that U.S. citizens are banned from doing business with them.
Kallas provided financial services to Tabaja through Al-Inmaa as an accountant for the company. He helped coordinate fund transfers and cash shipments between Iraq and Lebanon, where Hezbollah is based. He also helped designated terrorist financiers skirt U.S. sanctions.
Jamal-al-Din also works as an accountant for Al-Inmaa. He aided Kallas in moving money between Iraq and Lebanon.
Ayad is a known operative for Hezbollah’s External Security Organization (ESO), which plans, coordinates and executes the terrorist group’s attacks across the globe. He is known to have obtained material to create deadly explosives and was arrested in Thailand in Apr. 2014 for surveying targets for a potential attack against Israeli tourists.
Like Ayad, Hamdar is also a Hezbollah ESO operative. He was arrested for planning a terrorist attack in Lima, Peru in Oct. 2014. Peruvian security officials found pictures of popular tourist areas on his person and traces of explosives in his apartment. They also found TNT, gunpowder and detonators in a trashcan just outside his unit.
Saudi Arabia joined the U.S. in designating the individuals and Global Cleaners as supporters of terrorism.
“Hizbollah (sic) continues to plan, coordinate and execute terrorist attacks around the world, and Treasury will continue to aggressively target Hizbollah (sic) and those supporting its terrorist activities,” said Adam Szubin, Acting Undersecretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence in the statement.
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