The United States imposed sanctions on October 16 on individuals and companies that it said are part of a sanctions evasion network that funnels millions of dollars to Hezbollah in part through sales of illegal amphetamines.
The action targets three individuals and four Lebanon-based companies linked to Hezbollah's "finance team." The individuals have registered companies in their own names in order to conceal Hezbollah's interest in the activities, the Treasury Department said in a statement.
SEE ALSO: Israel Launches Fresh Strikes On Lebanon After Netanyahu Warning"The companies in turn provide Hizballah potentially lucrative business opportunities while also providing them access the formal financial system," according to the department.
The sanctions build on designations imposed in September on other individuals and entities linked to Hezbollah's corporate network. Those sanctions targeted Hezbollah finance officials who the department said masquerade as ordinary Lebanese business owners, as well as several of their companies.
The Treasury also placed sanctions on three individuals involved in the production and sale of the amphetamine known as captagon, who it said have funded the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and its allies, including Hezbollah.
"Today's action underscores (Hezbollah's) destabilizing influence within Lebanon and on the wider region, as the group, its affiliates, and its supporters continue to finance their operations through covert involvement in commercial trade and the illicit trafficking of captagon," Bradley Smith, acting undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, said in the statement.
State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said in a statement that the sanctions were imposed in support of the objectives of the Illicit Captagon Trafficking Suppression Act passed by Congress last year and signed by President Joe Biden in April.
The law requires the president to impose sanctions on foreign persons "determined to engage in activities or transactions to contribute to the illicit production and proliferation of captagon."
Miller said the "dangerous and highly addictive amphetamine harms communities and countries across the region and beyond and is a source of funding for the Syrian regime and its backers, including Hezbollah."
He said Hezbollah continues to launch rockets into Israel, further destabilizing both Lebanon and the region, and the United States remains steadfast in its commitment to "disrupt Hezbollah's access to the international financial system and its various methods of generating revenue, which the Iran-backed group uses to fund its violence."
"We will also continue to target the illicit captagon trade in the region, which has become an illicit billion-dollar enterprise operated in part by senior members of the Syrian regime," he said.
The sanctions freeze any assets held by the individuals and companies in U.S. jurisdiction and bar U.S. persons from conducting business with them.