Lebanese mafia

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Lebanese mafia
مافيا لبنانية
Founded1940s
Founding locationLebanon
Years activeSince the mid-20th century
TerritoryMiddle East, Europe, Australia, North America and South America
EthnicityLebanese
ActivitiesArms trafficking, assault, drug trafficking, extortion, fraud, murder, prostitution, theft, money laundering, counterfeiting, kidnapping
Allies
RivalsOccasional feuds between clans.
Notable membersList of members

Lebanese mafia is a colloquial term for organised crime groups which originate from Lebanon. Lebanese organised crime is active in the country of Lebanon itself, as well as in countries and areas with a large Lebanese community, most notably Australia, Germany and Canada, and also in the Triple Frontier in South America. Lebanese organised crime syndicates generally are active globally, largely due to the mass Lebanese population. For the past decades the Lebanese crime families had controlled 7,8% of Germany's underworld activities.

Lebanon[edit]

Due to its geographical location, Lebanon became a hub for drug trafficking during the 20th century, as the Port of Beirut gave smugglers direct links to various cities around the Mediterranean.[6] During the era of the "French Connection" drug network, the Lebanese mafia acted as middlemen in a global heroin trafficking operation. French-speaking Lebanese gangsters obtained morphine base from Turkish opium producers and then sold it on to contacts in the Corsican mafia. The Corsican mobsters then processed the morphine into heroin using an elaborate network of clandestine conversion laboratories in Marseilles and smuggled the drug into Canada on cargo ships. By the early 1950s, the French Connection was supplying over a hundred kilograms of heroin per month to North America.[1]

Beqaa Valley[edit]

The Beqaa Valley, a fertile valley in east Lebanon and one of the country's most important farming regions, is also known for being one of the most important cannabis cultivating regions in the Middle East. In certain parts of the region, life is structured around extended clan families, a number of whom are active in criminal activities such as narcotics trafficking, kidnapping for ransom and car theft.[7] Due to the vast international Lebanese diaspora and along with a certain amount of organised criminals active in their respective communities, the Beqaa Valley has become one of the most infamous marijuana and hashish exporting regions in the world.[8]

International activity[edit]

Australia[edit]

Lebanese organised crime was introduced in Australia after the mass immigration of Lebanese people after the Lebanese Civil War in the 1970s to the end of the 1980s. Prior to the war, the Lebanese community in Australia was overwhelmingly Christian, mostly Maronites, who had been coming to Australia since the 1880s. The wartime immigration lead to a large Muslim community moving to Australia for the first time. The main centre of Lebanese organised crime is Sydney, with a significant community of 120,000, followed by Melbourne. Criminal organisations are mostly based around extended crime families with a large number of associates from their community, such as the Alameddines who are Sunnis originally from the Miniyeh region in North Lebanon. The main activities of Lebanese gangs in Australia are narcotics and weapons trafficking, extortion, prostitution, car theft and money laundering. Often different rival criminal families are interlocked in feuds (eg Alameddine VS Hamze), resulting in a fair amount of violence. Criminal organizations however often transcend religious and cultural barriers, with members of the Sunni communities all involved in the same criminal organizations.[9]

Canada[edit]

Lebanese organized crime has a presence in the Montreal area.[10] On 6 April 2017, eleven people affiliated with a Lebanese drug clan were arrested in Montreal and Laval as part of Project Afliction, a ten-month investigation by the SPVM. 32 kilograms of cocaine and 42 firearms were also seized by police. The clan transported the drug into Quebec by air, accumulated $3 million in monthly revenue, and supplied some of the cocaine sold by the Hells Angels and the Italian mafia in the greater Montreal area.[3]

Germany[edit]

See also: Crime in Germany § Arab Mafia

In analogy with Australia, Lebanese organised crime also came to Germany following the Lebanese Civil War. A large number of former Lebanese citizens immigrated to several major German cities under political asylum and refugee status. Compared to the Lebanese population in Australia, a much larger number of Lebanese people are in Germany and have traditionally settled in large numbers in Lebanese regions such as Tripoli, the Beqaa Valley and Beirut where they have integral part of the country's Sunni community. Under a large number of refugees, there were also several extended clans that already in Lebanon were deeply entrenched in organized crime. In Germany, these clans mostly settled in Berlin, Bremen and Essen where they became involved in narcotics trafficking, weapons trafficking, extortion, prostitution, illegal gambling, car theft, money laundering and armed robbery.[11] Some of the more notorious Lebanese mafia families include the infamous el-koura Younes Clan, the Al-Qulaytat Tribe from Marwahin and Yarine, Shams Clan the Al Zein Clan[12] and the Miri Clan from Bremen.[13] These criminal organizations are mostly based around extended criminal clans.

Tri-Border Area[edit]

The Triple Frontier, a tri-border area along the junction of Paraguay, Argentina, and Brazil, is often used by Lebanese groups connected to political parties but also by Lebanese Shia terrorist group Hezbollah and Lebanese Mafia groups as a heaven for smuggling and money laundering.[14]

United States[edit]

Two rival Lebanese crime families, the Michaels family and the Leisure family, emerged in St. Louis, Missouri from the remnants of the Cuckoo Gang, a bootlegging and gambling outfit which operated during the Prohibition era.[15] The gangs were also referred to as Syrian as "the area of Lebanon from which they emigrated had been part of Syria".[15] The Syrian-Lebanese crime families in St. Louis were affiliated with and under the control of the Italian-American St. Louis crime family headed by Anthony Giordano.[16] After Giordano's death from cancer on August 29, 1980, the Michaels and Leisure families entered into open warfare with one another.[17][18]

Notable Lebanese gangsters[edit]

See also[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ a b c d Heroin & The 20th Century Detroit Mafia Scott Burnstein, GangsterReport.com (1 July 2014) Archived 19 October 2021 at the Wayback Machine
  2. ^ a b Who Let Them In? The Lebanese Mistake Andrew Bolt, Herald Sun (19 August 2017) Archived 20 August 2017 at the Wayback Machine
  3. ^ a b Thibault, Eric (11 April 2017). "La pègre libanaise alimentait les Hells Angels et la mafia". www.journaldemontreal.com. Retrieved 11 April 2017. Archived 15 April 2017 at the Wayback Machine
  4. ^ "Neue Achse des Bösen in Bremen". Bild (in German). 18 October 2010. Archived from the original on 5 February 2011. Retrieved 5 October 2011.
  5. ^ Religious divide drives bikie war Dylan Welch, The Sydney Morning Herald (16 February 2009) Archived 17 February 2009 at the Wayback Machine
  6. ^ The Lebanese Connection Jonathan Marshall, De Gruyter (2012) Archived 20 May 2024 at the Wayback Machine
  7. ^ "Rising crime in northern Bekaa Valley hurting Hezbollah". The Daily Star Newspaper - Lebanon. Retrieved 6 May 2015.
  8. ^ "THE WORLD'S LARGEST DRUG FIELD -- (BY DENNIS EISENBERG) (Extension of Remarks - July 27, 1990)". Fas.org. Retrieved 6 May 2015.
  9. ^ "Middle Eastern Crime Connections". Dailytelegraph.com.au. Retrieved 6 May 2015.
  10. ^ 17 suspects arraigned on narcotics charges at Laval Courthouse Martin C. Barry, Laval News (23 June 2023) Archived 23 June 2023 at the Wayback Machine
  11. ^ "Schattenseiten der Einwanderergesellschaft - Brutale Familienbande". Cicero Online. Retrieved 6 May 2015.
  12. ^ FOCUS Online (1 May 2005). "Kriminalität: Sturz des "Präsidenten"". FOCUS Online. Retrieved 6 May 2015.
  13. ^ Per Hinrichs (21 October 2013). "Miri-Clan: Eine Familie, tief verstrickt ins Verbrechen - DIE WELT". DIE WELT. Retrieved 6 May 2015.
  14. ^ "Terrorist and Organized Crime Groups in the Tri-Border Area of South America" (PDF). Loc.gov. Retrieved 6 May 2015.
  15. ^ a b Concern Rises On Auto Bombings In St. Louis The New York Times (November 15, 1981) Archived February 22, 2022, at the Wayback Machine
  16. ^ Car bombs and shootings: When St. Louis crime families were at war Kay Quinn, KSDK (September 1, 2022) Archived May 21, 2024, at the Wayback Machine
  17. ^ The St. Louis Syrian Mob War Timeline: Leisure Clan Took Shot At Brass Ring In Early-1980s Blood Feud Scott Burnstein, The Gangster Report (June 17, 2017) Archived July 24, 2021(Date mismatch), at the Wayback Machine
  18. ^ 1980: I-55 bombing sets off St. Louis' last big-time gang war Tom O'Neil, St. Louis Post-Dispatch (September 17, 2022) Archived October 16, 2022, at the Wayback Machine
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