Disir
Platinum Member
- Sep 30, 2011
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I have the Americans in my pocket and I can buy Washington.”
These are not the words of a man accustomed to operating above the board. They were spoken by Kassem Hejeij, according to a Lebanese government source who wished to remain anonymous for his own safety. Hejeij is an erstwhile pillar of the Lebanese banking establishment, and was chairman of the Lebanon-based Middle East & Africa Bank (MEAB) until June 2015. Announced in a defensively worded memo that was quick to distance the bank from its former head honcho, this was no simple change of staff: it was a panic attack.
In the summer of 2015, the US Department of the Treasury targeted a key Hezbollah support network by sanctioning three of the group’s facilitators in Lebanon. Two of the men were known members of Hezbolla. One was an active member of Hezbollah’s Islamic Jihad unit, the section responsible for carrying out the group’s overseas terrorist activities. The third was none other than Kassem Hejeij.
Sure, he resigned as chairman of MEAB, but he has been quick to assert that he has lost no control, whether he was pushed or he fell, saying, “After all turning the bank over to Ali changes nothing because me and my son are one and he is following my orders.” – Ali Hejeij is the son of Kassem, who now holds his father’s former position as Chairman of the Middle East and Africa Bank. The sanctions against him mean that he has been added to the American counter-terrorist Specially Designated Nationals List, which prohibits US businesses and nationals from doing business with him and blocks his assets. But there are plenty of Russian, Chinese, African and Arab investors who are willing to do business in Lebanon. Business in Lebanon, sure, but that doesn’t necessarily mean business with sanctioned people even assuming that the post-9/11 cutting of correspondent links by international banks to Arabs accused of links to terrorist groups has caused MEAB any business problems.
Power Without Responsibility — Kassem Hejeij And Hezbollah’s Illicit Financial Network
It's all in the family.
These are not the words of a man accustomed to operating above the board. They were spoken by Kassem Hejeij, according to a Lebanese government source who wished to remain anonymous for his own safety. Hejeij is an erstwhile pillar of the Lebanese banking establishment, and was chairman of the Lebanon-based Middle East & Africa Bank (MEAB) until June 2015. Announced in a defensively worded memo that was quick to distance the bank from its former head honcho, this was no simple change of staff: it was a panic attack.
In the summer of 2015, the US Department of the Treasury targeted a key Hezbollah support network by sanctioning three of the group’s facilitators in Lebanon. Two of the men were known members of Hezbolla. One was an active member of Hezbollah’s Islamic Jihad unit, the section responsible for carrying out the group’s overseas terrorist activities. The third was none other than Kassem Hejeij.
Sure, he resigned as chairman of MEAB, but he has been quick to assert that he has lost no control, whether he was pushed or he fell, saying, “After all turning the bank over to Ali changes nothing because me and my son are one and he is following my orders.” – Ali Hejeij is the son of Kassem, who now holds his father’s former position as Chairman of the Middle East and Africa Bank. The sanctions against him mean that he has been added to the American counter-terrorist Specially Designated Nationals List, which prohibits US businesses and nationals from doing business with him and blocks his assets. But there are plenty of Russian, Chinese, African and Arab investors who are willing to do business in Lebanon. Business in Lebanon, sure, but that doesn’t necessarily mean business with sanctioned people even assuming that the post-9/11 cutting of correspondent links by international banks to Arabs accused of links to terrorist groups has caused MEAB any business problems.
Power Without Responsibility — Kassem Hejeij And Hezbollah’s Illicit Financial Network
It's all in the family.
