The extent to which the Tehran regime has been promoting and increasing its presence in Latin America is striking. Its determined work in recent years to strengthen and intensify relations with countries in the region is leaving its mark. Today, the Islamic Republic already has 11 embassies in the region, operating with defense attachés in four of them, while also signing memorandums of understanding on security and defense matters with countries such as Venezuela and Bolivia.
The latter is precisely its most successful foreign policy project in the region, says Joseph Humire, a global security and terrorism expert, warning that “if there is any country in Latin America where Iran may be expanding its nuclear plans, it’s Bolivia.” Amid the confrontations in the Gaza Strip due to the Hamas terrorist attack, the Bolivian government broke off diplomatic relations with Israel, highlighting the close relationship and influence of Iran in Bolivia.
In the first part of this interview, Humire, director of the Center for a Secure Free Society (SFS), reveals the stealthy and measured steps that have allowed Iran to embed itself in the region’s politics, economy, and diplomacy, without arousing reactions or attracting attention. An infiltration that, Humire warns, is a worrying threat to the sovereignty, democracy, and security of the continent.
The ties that the Islamist government forged in the region have gone hand in hand with local alliances with criminal groups and radical movements, the expert says. “Part of Iran’s success, and what is so dangerous about this regime, is its ability to act with proxies — routing techniques for authorized agents and networks to carry out actions on behalf of another entity. We are already seeing how it makes use of them to destabilize and create conflict in the region and change the world as we know it today,” Humire said.
Hezbollah, leader of Iranian proxies in the region
From the criminal and bloody Hamas attack against the Israeli population on October 7, 2023, to Yemeni Houthi rebels’ attacks in the Red Sea, and the incursions into northern Israel, several experts and analysts have pointed to Iran as being behind these offensives. According to the U.S. State Department’s annual report on global terrorism, Iran is the world’s largest sponsor of terrorism. This is consistent with the European Parliament’s call in January 2023 to designate Iran’s Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist group.
Iran is known to sustain alliances and support violent non-state actors such as Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Houthis in Yemen, through which it sponsors and foments conflicts to weaken governments in the Middle East. “And Latin America is no exception,” Humire said, adding that “what is most urgent is to understand how Iran acts with proxies and Hezbollah is the best example.”
Its infamy in Latin America goes back to the 1992 terrorist attacks on the Israeli Embassy and the 1994 bombing of the Israeli Mutual Association (AMIA), both in Argentina. Several pieces of evidence, such as those of murdered Argentine Prosecutor Alberto Nisman, have pointed to Iran as responsible for planning and financing the attacks. “Hezbollah’s operations in Latin America are an integral part of Tehran’s strategy. Through this terrorist organization Iran expands its presence and advances its objectives, just as it does in the Middle East,” Humire said.
This organization has gone from being a simple terrorist network in Latin America to participating in the most lucrative illicit business in the region: narcotics. The area known as the Triple Frontier, comprising Argentina, Paraguay, and Brazil, and considered a “criminal paradise,” has become the gateway for Hezbollah’s operations and the epicenter of its activities. According to a 2016 DEA report, Hezbollah moves about $2 billion annually from drug trafficking in this area. “Hezbollah has reached such a level in transnational organized crime that it has been dubbed the ‘Western Union of drug cartels’ in Latin America,” Humire said.
According to the report, Hezbollah, through its component known as the Business Affairs, part of the External Security Organization (also known as Islamic Jihad Organization and Unit 910, which plans and coordinates intelligence and terrorist activities outside of Lebanon), manages cocaine trafficking with logistics support from cartels such as Colombia’s Oficina de Envigado, Mexico’s Zetas, and Venezuela’s Los Soles. “This is extremely worrying, as we are facing a convergence of local and international threats, where organized crime and terrorism are mixed to achieve their objectives,” Humire said.
In mid 2021, two well-known foreign businessmen and their families left Bogotá quickly after Colombian intelligence services alerted them of a potential attack against them. The alleged perpetrators of the foiled plan were two Colombians who had been hired by an Iranian citizen. A similar situation occurred in November 2023 when the Brazilian Federal Police reported that it had arrested two Brazilian men who had been recruited and financed by Hezbollah to plan attacks against the Jewish community.
“We are facing two phenomena that are important to highlight. On the one hand, a trend of how Iran and Hezbollah seek through locals to carry out their objectives with a high level of plausible deniability. On the other, and this is the specific case of the recent captures in Brazil, Hezbollah has expanded rapidly, to the point that today it is moving out of its traditional zone of influence. The main center of the operation carried out in Brazil was in Minas Gerais, an area where until then there was no known Hezbollah presence. This forces us to ask ourselves the question: to what level have Hezbollah and Iran spread and penetrated today the organizations and criminal systems of the region that today may be proxies of Iran,” Humire added.
Phantom reinforcements: two monsters under the same strategy
- Clandestine networks
There is something more disturbing than Hezbollah, Humire says. “They are Arab clandestine networks with economic and political power, members of migrant families with a lot of power in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and the Arab world and very well connected in Latin America.” According to Humire, these networks act as Hezbollah’s imperceptible facilitators to penetrate not only criminal networks, but also political circles. “They don’t necessarily belong to Hezbollah or any terrorist group, but they support these groups as part of their illicit business; they use their ties to create a whole corruption scheme that ends up favoring Hezbollah, a strategy that is also used by this terrorist group to maintain its clandestinity in the region.”
As an example, Humire mentions Amer Akil Rada, a Lebanese Colombian member of the Rada clan, whom the U.S. Treasury Department designated in September 2023 as an actor and financial facilitator of Hezbollah in South America and Lebanon. “Rada belongs to a family that has spread in the region and has known how to mix the licit with the illicit, such as coal exports to Lebanon, with organized crime, money laundering and terrorism; we also already saw how he maintains political connections for example with the Maduro regime,” Humire says.
- Local proxies
Hezbollah’s clandestine efforts are in addition to the local proxies with whom Iran works with in the region. “Beyond terrorism and drug trafficking, Iran is interested in destabilizing the region through internal conflicts to create chaos, cause wars between countries, redraw borders, and change maritime trade routes, and for that it needs local proxies,” Humire said.
In early 2023, Peru declared a state of emergency amid social protests ignited after the impeachment and arrest on December 7, 2022, of President Pedro Castillo, accused of a failed coup d’état in attempting to dissolve Parliament. “Those demonstrations were planned and initiated by Peruvians trained in Iran,” Humire says. “It is estimated that since 2009, about 250 Peruvians have traveled to Iran, concentrating in Islamic centers, and then returning to build cells within indigenous and separatist groups in southern Peru. In terms of numbers, it may not be much, but in terms of capacity it’s enough.”
One of these movements where Humire says there has been greater infiltration from Iran is the ethnocacerist indigenous movement. “This group that was a local group that exercised violence, that worked sometimes with unions to destabilize, grew to promote a much greater one; it is even capable of paralyzing a country. And the question is, how did they learn to do that? Iran taught them,” says Humire.
A statement echoed by Max Anhuamán, head of Peru’s Anti-Terrorism Directorate (Dircote). “What we see are the facts, the radicalism, that’s what we see,” Anhuamán said in an October 2023 interview with Peruvian program Hablamos claro of Radio and TV Channel Exitosa Noticias. “The young people who have returned [from Iran], many of them are now the ones leading the social protests,” he added, addressing the recruitment of young Peruvians.
Peru under scrutiny
Peru is one of the few countries in the region that still does not have close diplomatic ties with Iran. However, Tehran’s presence and influence in the Andean country has been felt. “It is a strategic country for Iran because its sight is focused on the Pacific. Tehran needs new entrances and exits that allow it to receive cargo of all kinds, including the most illicit which is smuggling, and Peru is going to be a good example of this,” Humire said.
The global security and anti-terrorism expert makes this warning referring to the Port of Chancay being built by China. “I think this port is going to be very problematic. While there is already an outbound and inbound smuggling scheme at the Port of Ilo in southern Peru, they don’t have a large port for export, and that could be this new port,” Humire says.
The scope of China’s port network in the region, where the Asian country built some 40 port projects, threatens the security of the continent, Humire says. “Behind the economic strategy lies a military one. Most of the ports China has built are concentrated in the Pacific; they want to use commercial transport links to open channels through which the military can pass, and thus a gateway to illegality and dirty work that Iran, China’s strategic ally, oversees.”
The Essequibo: a dangerous experiment
In addition to infiltrating radical movements and organizations in the region, Iran adds another even more alarming strategy. Humire speaks of awakening old unresolved historical conflicts, acting as a silent disruptor and creator of conflict scenarios that allow it to advance its revolutionary plans. “The Essequibo is the best example, this is going to be the experiment; if it goes well, others will follow.”
The dispute over the Essequibo resurfaces as a side effect of the war in the Middle East, Humire says. “We would not be talking about Guyana if Hamas does not attack Israel; it is the amplification of anti-Israeli sentiment and behind this interest is mainly Iran supported by China.”
On September 8, 2023, Nicolás Maduro traveled to Beijing to meet his counterpart, Xi Jinping. Following the weeklong visit, both parties signed a “strategic alliance against all odds,” while Xi Jinping’ offered his support to Caracas to “maintain its sovereignty.”
Strangely enough, the expert says, two weeks after the meeting, the fuse over the Essequibo was lit. “It is a cooperation seen from different angles, while China supports from the shadows, Iran sails with its armament. Today we see Venezuela testing Iranian speedboats and unmanned drones to attack Guyana,” Humire said.
Six months prior, Iran’s President Ibrahim Raisi had visited Venezuela. Following his meeting with Maduro, Raisi announced that both countries would increase bilateral trade from $3 billion to $20 billion. “We have to be extremely careful with this language,” Humire said. “Trade and investment mean armament; we are not talking about investment and trade to develop the economy. They don’t know about that, what they are talking about is strengthening the defense industry and preparing for war and conflict.”
A dispute promoted by Iran, but by China and Russia too, Humire says. “These countries that call themselves the multipolar powers have been carrying out naval exercises together during the last few years, and we already see how they carry out aggressions and synchronized invasions in Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan, all to redraw borders and change the sovereignty of certain countries in the world. They are now pushing that same coordination and training toward the Caribbean, turning Venezuela into a war platform.”
The Essequibo, as such, turns into a very dangerous experiment, Humire says. “Among several other unresolved sovereign territory disputes in the region, this is the one with the lowest political cost, the least international risk, and the greatest benefit […]. At the same time Guyana, among the other countries with territorial disputes in the region, is the smallest,” Humire points out. “If they succeed, the next one will be Panama, a small country, with […] high Hezbollah presence and an important maritime component.”
The ignorance of a people
Stealthily and continuously, the Islamic Republic of Iran together with Hezbollah has infiltrated and penetrated the high political and economic spheres of the region, as well as criminal groups, including drug trafficking cartels, illicit networks, and revolutionary movements, Humire shows throughout this interview. Steps, the expert says, that the region is unaware of, making this the greatest threat facing Latin America today. “The biggest challenge is ignorance. There is no knowledge about the Middle East, or about the history of these actors. It’s time to raise awareness and understand what Iran is, what Hezbollah is, why they benefit from the upheavals in the region, from the wave of leftist governments and criminal groups that have long caused so much damage to the continent,” the expert says.
Humire, who has been studying Iran and its armed networks for more than a decade, not only warns governments and decision-makers, but also civilians, the media, and academia, to be more attentive to the growing risks to the security and democracy of countries of the region.
“We are facing a threat that is no longer latent but real and at a global level. Latin America must stop seeing Iran as a distant actor and understand the seriousness of this situation. While governments move forward in strengthening ties with Iran, the people must become aware of the implications of these relations and prevent them from continuing, before it is too late,”, Humire concludes.
This article is the second part of a two-part investigation. Read Part I here.