Feds link 3 Miami businessmen to alleged Hezbollah front


Federal agents have arrested three South Florida businessmen accused of exporting video games and other electronic products to a shopping mall in Paraguay that allegedly served as a front to finance the terrorist group Hezbollah, according to federal authorities.

The Miami-Dade businessmen arrested late Thursday, Khaled T. Safadi, Ulises Talavera and Emilio Gonzalez-Neira, appeared in federal court Friday to face charges related to a Treasury Department ban on doing business with the black-listed militia and political organization based in Lebanon.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Russell Koonin said the three defendants are flight risks and should be held without bond before trial. Magistrate Judge Peter Palermo scheduled bond hearings for March 1 and arraignments for March 5.

A fourth suspect in South America, Samer Mehdi, has been charged in the investigation, led by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Mehdi has not been arrested.

Safadi's defense attorney, Michael Tein, said in an interview that his client was innocent, mocking the indictment by calling it ``the great Sony PlayStation caper.'' ``Believe it or not, this indictment actually charges these gentleman with supporting Hezbollah by shipping them Sony PlayStations,'' Tein said. ``I guess that's a new type of weapon of mass destruction.''

According to an indictment, the three Miami-Dade businessmen are accused of exporting hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of PlayStation 2 video games and digital cameras to a shopping center called Galeria Page in Paraguay. The U.S. government has designated the mall as a funding arm of Hezbollah.

Galeria Page, located in Ciudad del Este, serves as a Hezbollah fundraising source in Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay, according to a Treasury Department press statement issued in December 2006. It is considered the central headquarters for Hezbollah members in the region.

Hezbollah members operate retail businesses in Galeria Page to support Hezbollah, according to the press release. Muhammad Yusif Abdallah, a manager of Galeria Page, paid a regular quota to Hezbollah based on profits he received from the mall, the statement says. In the Dec. 6, 2006, release, the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control said the mall was part of a South American network that aided Assad Ahmad Barakat, who has been on the U.S. terrorist blacklist since 2004.

``Assad Ahmad Barakat's network in [South America] is a major financial artery to Hezbollah in Lebanon,'' Adam Szubin, director of the Office of Foreign Assets Control, said in the release. ``Today's action aims to disrupt this channel and to further unravel Barakat's financial network.''

Miami Herald

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