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Canadian officers have accused a Toronto-area used automotive vendor 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 courtroom data launched to World Information, the officers referred to as the Mississauga, Ont., resident a “hazard to the safety of Canada.”
A veteran auto dealer, Sowane has exported Audi, BMW and different autos 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.
Because of this, the officers discovered Sowane inadmissible to Canada, that 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 stated high-end auto exports had been a “very well-known Hezbollah financing approach.”
To maneuver money throughout borders, Hezbollah makes use of it to purchase autos, that are despatched to Lebanon and resold, stated Jessica Davis, president of Perception Risk 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 stated.
“And that is vital as a result of banks are literally fairly properly geared up to detect cash laundering and terrorist financing. And so it is a manner 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 Companies Company didn’t reply to questions concerning the matter. Sowane’s lawyer stated his shopper was upset by the courtroom’s ruling.
In emails to World Information, Dan Miller stated the immigration officers on the case “might provide no proof of any conduct of concern.”
He disputed the federal government’s declare that Sowane had exported autos 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 lot 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 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 might 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, educated 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, typically by means of the worldwide auto commerce.
Iran has inspired its axis teams to develop various sources of funding, stated Davis, writer of Illicit Cash: Financing Terrorism within the twenty first Century.
That features taxation, extortion, investments and legal networks, she stated.
“These are the sorts of issues that present longevity and monetary lifelines to terrorist teams, even when their terrorist patrons lower them off.”
The Beirut port is managed by Hezbollah, in accordance with Canadian officers, April 13, 2025. (AP Photograph/Hassan Ammar).
In a 2022 terrorist financing alert, the Monetary Transactions and Stories Evaluation Centre of Canada warned about Hezbollah’s actions.
The bulletin stated that, after ISIS, Hezbollah was the worldwide terrorist group most ceaselessly noticed shifting cash throughout borders.
“A big portion of funds suspected of funding Hezbollah had been despatched to Lebanon,” FINTRAC wrote within the operation alert for monetary establishments.
“Funds suspected of funding Hezbollah had been ceaselessly despatched or obtained by particular person/entities referencing sale of vehicles or listed within the automotive business.”
A automotive vendor for greater than three many years, 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 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.
Three years after Sowane arrived in Canada on a piece allow, Ontario’s Ministry of Financial Growth nominated him to turn out to be 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 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 had been processing Sowane’s everlasting residence utility, the Canadian Safety Intelligence Service stepped in.
After CSIS despatched a safety screening temporary 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 stated he didn’t present them, prompting officers to allege he “withheld data.”
Sowane argued he didn’t share the identical spiritual beliefs as Hezbollah, however the CBSA stated that “ideology will not be an element on the subject of private financial revenue.”
His lawyer instructed 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 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 stated the immigration division had come to its determination in a “procedurally honest and affordable method.”
Davis referred to 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 type of stuff is going on on this nation even once we don’t see legislation enforcement motion,” she stated.
“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
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