Canadian officers have accused a Toronto-area used car exporter of laundering money 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 information launched to World 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 “money laundering to learn Hezbollah,” in keeping with the information.
In consequence, the officers discovered Sowane inadmissible to Canada, which means he’s not allowed to stay within the nation.
The Federal Courtroom upheld the choice final week.
A former Canadian intelligence analyst who makes a speciality of terror finance stated high-end auto exports have been a “very well-known Hezbollah financing approach.”
To maneuver money throughout borders, Hezbollah makes use of it to purchase automobiles, that are despatched to Lebanon and resold, stated Jessica Davis, president of Perception Risk Intelligence.
“What this implies is that money is shifting from Canada to Lebanon however with out ever touching the banking system,” the previous Canadian Safety Intelligence Service official stated.
“And that is vital as a result of banks are literally fairly properly geared up to detect money laundering and terrorist financing. And so it is a method that criminals circumvent all of these safeguards that we put into the monetary system.”
Photograph of Fahed Sowane from his immigration file.
Federal Courtroom
The Canada Border Providers Company stated that when immigration officers have deemed a international nationwide inadmissible, it “will pursue their elimination from Canada as shortly as attainable.”
Sowane’s lawyer stated his shopper was disillusioned by the court docket’s ruling.
In emails to World Information, Dan Miller stated the immigration officers on the case “may supply 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 money laundering.
Sowane’s “frustration is made all the more serious as a result of the Canadian authorities permits tons of of Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps members to reside freely in Canada, a bunch 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 a substitute, the federal government goes after small-time people on flimsy suspicions to fake to be doing one thing, whereas on the identical 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 keeping with Public Security Canada.
Armed, educated and financed by Tehran, it’s half 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 the worldwide auto commerce.
Iran has inspired its axis teams to develop different sources of funding, stated Davis, writer of Illicit Money: Financing Terrorism within the twenty first Century.
That features taxation, extortion, investments and legal networks, she stated.
“These are the varieties 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 keeping with Canadian officers, April 13, 2025. (AP Photograph/Hassan Ammar).
In a 2022 terrorist financing alert, the Monetary Transactions and Experiences Evaluation Centre of Canada warned about Hezbollah’s actions.
The bulletin stated that, after ISIS, Hezbollah was the worldwide terrorist group most steadily noticed shifting money 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 obtained by particular person/entities referencing sale of automobiles or listed within the automotive trade.”
A car seller for greater than three many years in Lebanon and Belgium, Sowane launched Black Swan Buying and selling Inc. in Ontario in 2015, in keeping with paperwork filed in Federal Courtroom.
He additionally labored at M&J Canada Inc., the place his job description was “car seller” and his duties included exporting used automobiles and elements to abroad markets, in keeping with the information.
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 stated Sowane was not a registered car seller.
Three years after Sowane arrived in Canada on a piece allow, Ontario’s Ministry of Financial Improvement nominated him to grow to be a landed immigrant.
The province nominates potential immigrants who “have the abilities and expertise the Ontario economic system wants,” in keeping with the federal government web site.
The ministry accountable 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 information on his auto exports, they stated he didn’t present them, prompting officers to allege he “withheld info.”
Sowane argued he didn’t share the identical non secular beliefs as Hezbollah, however an immigration officer wrote that “ideology will not be an element relating to private financial revenue.”
His lawyer advised immigration officers his shopper 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 totally different. He blames Hezbollah for turning Lebanon right into a failed state and says that he needs nothing to do with Hezbollah,” the lawyer wrote in an April 2024 e-mail.
Sowane appealed the choice that he was a safety menace however misplaced.
In a choice handed down on Jan. 21, the Federal Courtroom stated the immigration division had come to its determination in a “procedurally truthful and affordable 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 feel it’s actually vital that Canadians perceive that this type of stuff is going on on this nation even after we don’t see regulation enforcement motion,” she stated.
“There are different ways in which the Canadian authorities goes about disrupting finance networks. Immigration is a extremely, truly fairly vital, piece of that.”
Stewart.Bell@globalnews.ca
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