Sanctions and Illicit Finance

Whether countries in the region will take similar action remains unclear. All eyes should now be on Brazil, the TBA’s last hold-out. Brazil is particularly important because Hezbollah’s TBA operations rely heavily on Brazil’s financial system to move money in and out of the area. Washington should therefore pressure Brazil to follow its neighbors’ example by designating Hezbollah as a terrorist organization. 

Since the country’s June 2018 elections, Erdogan’s government has failed to respond to more than half of the 13,488 parliamentary questions submitted. Tanal’s renewed inquiry will likely meet the same fate. The challenge of illicit finance continues to grow in Turkey, which has become a permissive jurisdiction for a number of rogue actors in addition to Iran.

Benjamin Weinthal is a European correspondent at The Jerusalem Post and a fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.