Terrorism in the Americas

CENTURION ASG INTEL FUSION CELL

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Under current United States law, set forth in the USA PATRIOT Act, acts of domestic terrorism are those which: "(A) involve acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or of any State; (B) appear to be intended— (i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population; (ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or (iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping; and (C) occur primarily within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States."[2]
 
Terrorists and insurgents are turning to crime and criminal networks for funding and logistics. In FY 2010, 29 of the 63 top drug trafficking organizations identified by the Department of Justice had links to terrorist organizations. In Latin America, for example, the FARC and Hezbollah gain access to Venezuelan territory without fear of reprisals; they gain access to Venezuelan identification documents; and, perhaps most importantly, access to routes for exporting cocaine to Europe and the United States -- while using the same routes to import quantities of sophisticated weapons and communications equipment. In return, the Maduro government offers state protection, and reaps rewards in the form of financial benefits for individuals as well as institutions, derived from the cocaine trade.
Iran benefits from access to the international financial market through Venezuelan, Ecuadoran and Bolivian financial institutions, which act as proxies by moving Iranian money as if it originated in their own unsanctioned financial institutions. 

 A recent blockbuster book in Spanish, El Bumerán Chávez: Los Fraudes Que Llevaron al Colapso de Venezuela (The Chávez Boomerang: The Frauds That Led to the Collapse of Venezuela) describes in detail from numerous eye witnesses cocaine dealing and high level contacts between Venezuelan government officials and Hezbollah operatives, where the Venezuelan government authorized financial activities of the terrorist group in Venezuela. (Emili J. Blasco, El Bumerán Chávez: Los Fraudes Que Llevaron al Colapso de Venezuela, Center for Investigative Journalism in the Americas, 2015, Washington, D.C.)