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Arabia

Iran said funneling funds to Hezbollah via Dubai in attempt to help it rebuild

2025-11-28

[IsraelTimes] Wall Street Journal reports that Tehran has sent Hezbollah hundreds of millions of dollars obtained through oil sales over the past year; UAE says working to put a stop to it

The Hezbollah terror group in Lebanon has received hundreds of millions of dollars from Iran over the past year via money laundering operations in Dubai, The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday, after Tehran moved away from the smuggling routes it had previously used due to complications created by the fall of the Assad regime in Syria last December.

The report, which cited officials familiar with the matter, revealed that Iran has been funding Hezbollah’s efforts to rebuild its forces after much of the terror group and its leadership was wiped out in a year-long war with Israel, which ended in a truce last November.

To aid these efforts, the WSJ reported, Iran has been funneling money earned through oil sales to Hezbollah from within the United Arab Emirates, which has diplomatic relations with Israel.

The money from oil sales is moved through Iran-linked exchange shops and private companies, as well as to businessmen and couriers, the WSJ said. It is then transferred to Lebanon through the informal and centuries-old transfer system known as Hawala, in which individuals, rather than banks, act as brokers for money transfers. The system is widely used in Muslim countries, but is not limited to them.

Approached for comment by the WSJ, an unnamed Emirati official said the country was opposed to such activities being carried out in its territory, and that officials were working with international partners to put a stop to it.

Lebanon has also taken a series of steps to try to put a stop to the smuggling, including banning direct flights from Iran and increasing the screening at airports and other borders. Iran has been able to get around this, however, by sending more travelers with smaller amounts of cash or jewelry, thereby bypassing the need to declare anything at customs and lowering the risk of arousing suspicion, the report said.

In November, the US undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, John Hurley, said Iran had managed to funnel about $1 billion to Hezbollah in 2025.

Iran has primarily smuggled this money through Dubai after its regular routes were cut off or severely obstructed when Tehran’s ally, former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, was ousted last December.

Last month, the US Treasury sanctioned two individuals accused of using money exchanges to help fund Hezbollah.

The WSJ report came on the first anniversary of a ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon that brought an end to more than a year of border clashes and outright war with Hezbollah, which began firing rockets at Israeli military outposts and communities on October 8, 2023, a day after fellow Iran-backed terror group Hamas invaded southern Israel, sparking the war in Gaza.