Canadian officers have accused a Toronto-area used automotive exporter of laundering cash for the Iranian-backed terrorist group Hezbollah.
Fahed Sowane, a 57-year-old Lebanese citizen who got here to Canada on a piece allow in 2016, has denied the allegations.
However in heavily-redacted court docket data launched to International Information, the officers known as the Mississauga, Ont., resident a “hazard to the safety of Canada.”
A veteran auto dealer, Sowane has exported Audi, BMW and different automobiles to the Hezbollah-controlled port of Beirut, the highly-classified paperwork allege.
Immigration officers concluded the shipments amounted to “cash laundering to learn Hezbollah,” in accordance with the information.
Consequently, the officers discovered Sowane inadmissible to Canada, which means he isn’t allowed to stay within the nation.
The Federal Courtroom upheld the choice final week.
A former Canadian intelligence analyst who focuses on terror finance mentioned high-end auto exports have been a “very well-known Hezbollah financing method.”
To maneuver money throughout borders, Hezbollah makes use of it to purchase automobiles, that are despatched to Lebanon and resold, mentioned Jessica Davis, president of Perception Menace Intelligence.
“What this implies is that cash is shifting from Canada to Lebanon however with out ever touching the banking system,” the previous Canadian Safety Intelligence Service official mentioned.
“And that is vital as a result of banks are literally fairly nicely outfitted to detect cash laundering and terrorist financing. And so this can be a manner that criminals circumvent all of these safeguards that we put into the monetary system.”
Picture of Fahed Sowane from his immigration file.
Federal Courtroom
The Canada Border Companies Company didn’t reply to questions in regards to the matter. Sowane’s lawyer mentioned his consumer was upset by the court docket’s ruling.
In emails to International Information, Dan Miller mentioned the immigration officers on the case “may provide no proof of any conduct of concern.”
He disputed the federal government’s declare that Sowane had exported automobiles to Beirut for lower than he paid for them — a flag for cash laundering.
Sowane’s “frustration is made all the more serious as a result of the Canadian authorities permits a whole bunch of Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps members to reside freely in Canada, a gaggle which he strongly opposes,” Miller added.
“Equally, every weekend pro-Hamas supporters collect freely on the intersection of Bathurst St. and Sheppard Ave. in Toronto to intimidate the native Jewish neighborhood, and the federal government does nothing to cease this.”
“As an alternative, the federal government goes after small-time people on flimsy suspicions to faux to be doing one thing, whereas on the similar time it avoids taking any motion which may offend its voter base.”
Hezbollah is a “radical Shia group” dedicated to turning Lebanon into an Islamist republic like Iran, in accordance with Public Security Canada.
Armed, skilled and financed by Tehran, it’s a part of the Iranian-led “axis of resistance” that additionally contains Gaza-based Hamas and Yemen’s Houthis.
Though bankrolled by Iran, Hezbollah additionally depends on drug trafficking and different crimes for income, and launders the proceeds, usually by means of the worldwide auto commerce.
Iran has inspired its axis teams to develop various sources of funding, mentioned Davis, writer of Illicit Cash: Financing Terrorism within the twenty first Century.
That features taxation, extortion, investments and legal networks, she mentioned.
“These are the sorts of issues that present longevity and monetary lifelines to terrorist teams, even when their terrorist patrons minimize them off.”
The Beirut port is managed by Hezbollah, in accordance with Canadian officers, April 13, 2025. (AP Picture/Hassan Ammar).
In a 2022 terrorist financing alert, the Monetary Transactions and Reviews Evaluation Centre of Canada warned about Hezbollah’s actions.
The bulletin mentioned that, after ISIS, Hezbollah was the worldwide terrorist group most steadily noticed shifting cash throughout borders.
“A big portion of funds suspected of funding Hezbollah have been despatched to Lebanon,” FINTRAC wrote within the operation alert for monetary establishments.
“Funds suspected of funding Hezbollah have been steadily despatched or acquired by particular person/entities referencing sale of vehicles or listed within the automotive business.”
A automotive supplier for greater than three many years in Lebanon and Belgium, Sowane launched Black Swan Buying and selling Inc. in Ontario in 2015, in accordance with paperwork filed in Federal Courtroom.
He additionally labored at M&J Canada Inc., the place his job description was “automotive supplier” and his duties included exporting used vehicles and elements to abroad markets, in accordance with the data.
The Mississauga used car dealership, which described Sowane in a letter as a full-time worker, didn’t reply to requests for remark. The Ontario Motor Car Business Council mentioned Sowane was not a registered automotive supplier.
Three years after Sowane arrived in Canada on a piece allow, Ontario’s Ministry of Financial Growth nominated him to turn into a landed immigrant.
The province nominates potential immigrants who “have the talents and expertise the Ontario financial system wants,” in accordance with the federal government web site.
The ministry answerable for this system didn’t reply to questions.
A CSIS safety screening report on Fahed Sowane has been closely redacted.
Federal Courtroom
Whereas federal immigration officers have been processing Sowane’s everlasting residence utility, the Canadian Safety Intelligence Service stepped in.
After CSIS despatched a safety screening transient to the CBSA in February 2024, Sowane was rejected “for being a hazard to the safety of Canada.”
Though immigration officers requested Sowane for data on his auto exports, they mentioned he didn’t present them, prompting officers to allege he “withheld info.”
Sowane argued he didn’t share the identical spiritual beliefs as Hezbollah, however the CBSA mentioned that “ideology will not be an element on the subject of private financial revenue.”
His lawyer instructed immigration officers his consumer had “by no means had something to do with Hezbollah and that his enterprise actions have by no means had something to do with Hezbollah.”
“The Sunnis in Lebanon hate Hezbollah and Mr. Sowane is not any completely different. He blames Hezbollah for turning Lebanon right into a failed state and says that he desires nothing to do with Hezbollah,” the lawyer wrote in an April 2024 e mail.
Sowane appealed the CBSA’s determination however misplaced.
In a determination handed down on Jan. 21, the Federal Courtroom mentioned the immigration division had come to its determination in a “procedurally honest and cheap method.”
Davis known as it “a uncommon case of Hezbollah enforcement disruption in Canada,” which used the immigration screening system versus the legal courts.
“I believe it’s actually vital that Canadians perceive that this sort of stuff is occurring on this nation even once we don’t see regulation enforcement motion,” she mentioned.
“There are different ways in which the Canadian authorities goes about disrupting finance networks. Immigration is a extremely, really fairly vital, piece of that.”
Stewart.Bell@globalnews.ca
