Trade Point International
Trade Point International S.A.R.L. is a Lebanon-based company designated by U.S. Treasury in January 2016 because it was owned or controlled by Mohamad Noureddine. Treasury stated that Noureddine used Trade Point to transfer Hezbollah funds and that an employee, Hamdi Zaher El Dine, worked with him on transfers for people in Adham Tabaja’s network. DEA later identified Noureddine’s arrest in a European drug-money-laundering investigation. The public announcements do not identify a specific cocaine sale or drug-proceeds deposit by Trade Point itself.[1][2]
Company and financial relationships
Treasury designated Trade Point under Executive Order 13224 as owned or controlled by Noureddine, while designating Noureddine and El Dine for providing financial services to or in support of Hezbollah. Treasury described Trade Point as a Lebanon-based multipurpose company. The authority and stated basis for the company differ from a narcotics-specific Kingpin Act designation.[1]
Treasury said Noureddine had worked directly with Hezbollah’s financial apparatus to transfer funds through Trade Point. It identified El Dine as a Trade Point employee who worked with Noureddine to transfer money for Adham Tabaja and employees of Al-Inmaa Engineering and Contracting. The record gives a company, named people and an attributed transfer role, but no complete ledger or quantified amount for Trade Point.[1]
Treasury also named Husayn Ali Faour and Tabaja’s Al-Inmaa Engineering and Contracting in Noureddine’s client network, and described his financial services across Asia, Europe and the Middle East. That broader Noureddine client map is not a transaction ledger for Trade Point, and the release did not identify a cocaine shipment by the company.[1]
Scope of the financial services
Treasury described Noureddine’s services as including money laundering, bulk-cash transport and black-market currency exchange, delivered through contacts across Asia, Europe and the Middle East. It alleged that he transferred substantial amounts supporting Hezbollah’s commercial investments in Lebanon and Iraq. These statements specify the services and regional relationships the agency attributed to the owner; they do not give Trade Point a separately measured revenue, drug-proceeds total or Hezbollah payment amount.[1]
Chronology
DEA said the European operation began in February 2015 from investigative leads and grew out of the Lebanese Canadian Bank investigation. David Asher’s June 2017 testimony dated coordinated European raids to 24–25 January 2016. Treasury announced its designations on 28 January, followed by DEA’s account on 1 February. The investigation, arrests, sanctions and public announcement were distinct steps; the company designation did not itself report a criminal conviction.[2][3]
Company and financial relationships
DEA’s February 2016 announcement said a European investigation uncovered couriers moving drug proceeds from Europe toward the Middle East, with payments to Colombian traffickers through hawala disbursement. It reported Noureddine’s arrest and repeated that he transferred Hezbollah funds through Trade Point. Those network-level drug-proceeds findings provide context for Noureddine’s case; the public release does not attribute each courier movement or drug transaction to Trade Point. An arrest and a sanctions designation are not equivalent to a company conviction.[2]
Related owner proceedings and response
AFP reported that a Paris court convicted Noureddine in November 2018 of laundering drug-trafficking proceeds, ordinary money laundering and criminal association, imposing seven years in prison and a €500,000 fine. That was the reported outcome for Noureddine. It should not be restated as a conviction or fine imposed on Trade Point, or as a finding that the company’s transactions financed Hezbollah.[4]
At the trial’s opening, AFP reported that Noureddine acknowledged organizing cash collections but denied knowing the funds’ origin and denied that any money went to Hezbollah. The report described collections in Europe, conversion through luxury goods sold in Lebanon or West Africa, and returns to Colombian traffickers. It also said French investigators had not pursued the alleged Hezbollah connection. His response is material to the earlier agency account of the company’s owner.[5]
Interpretations and company-level limits
Matthew Levitt’s March 2019 CTC Sentinel study characterized the French outcome more broadly as a conspiracy to finance Hezbollah. That characterization differs from AFP’s contemporaneous description of laundering offenses and criminal association. The broader research interpretation should remain attributed and does not establish an additional corporate conviction or resolve the missing transaction-level allocation for Trade Point.[6]
Noam Binstok, Orna Mizrahi and Esteban Klor’s May 2026 INSS analysis describes the conversion of money into goods and the use of hawala offsets and trade settlement. The model helps explain the distinction between collecting cash, selling goods and settling an obligation elsewhere. It offers context for the financial services and European investigation discussed here; it does not show that Trade Point handled every collection or used every method in the wider network.[7]
See also
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 Treasury Sanctions Key Hizballah Money Laundering Network, 28 January 2016
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 DEA and European Authorities Uncover Massive Hizballah Drug and Money Laundering Scheme, 1 February 2016
- ↑ Download the full testimony here.
- ↑ AFP / L’Orient-Le Jour, Noureddine verdict, November 2018
- ↑ AFP / L’Orient-Le Jour, Lebanese Connection trial, November 2018
- ↑ Hezbollah’s Procurement Channels: Leveraging Criminal Networks and Partnering with Iran
- ↑ Hezbollah’s Global Financial Network as a Target in the War Against the Organization
Legal and sanctions status as of 6 October 2026.