Iran smuggling gold via Venezuela to fund Hezbollah - report

…While Hezbollah’s presence in Venezuela is usually characterized solely as a potential terrorist threat, it’s widely thought that the group's presence is much wider there, turning the Latin American country into a "hub for the convergence of transnational organized crime and international terrorism." “In Venezuela, you have a regime that is sympathetic to Iran, so by proxy, sympathetic to Hezbollah," said David Daoud, research director of Lebanon, Israel, and Syria at United Against Nuclear Iran and a non-resident fellow at the Atlantic Council. "There is also a huge Lebanese Shiite expatriate community, and Hezbollah knows how to make their inroads," he told i24NEWS.