Hezbollah's Criminal Empire – How Big it is and Why Does it Exist?

Hezbollah movement in Lebanon is arguably one of the most significant actors, who shape today’s Middle East and it can be arguably designated as the most powerful violent non-state actor in today’s world with significant state support. Despite its wealth coming from its state supporters and a number of relatively legal businesses and charities it has become involved in criminal enterprises. Although a non-negligible amount of literature has been written about it, there is still much uncertainty not only about the extent of this activities, their importance for Hezbollah financing, but most importantly about the reasons for the involvement in these relatively risky a reputation damaging activities. Thus the purpose of this paper is to answer firstly sub-question about “How important criminal activities are for Hezbollah financing?” Answering it should shed more light on the main research question - “Why is Hezbollah involved in criminal activities.” The author is aware about significant obstacles in the research, but he hopes that through critical scrutiny of the known cases of Hezbollah criminal activities (based on both primary and secondary sources) and due to relatively rich literature and knowledge about this movement, these questions can be seriously answered. The author’s preliminary assessment is that Hezbollah criminal activities are much less important for the Party’s funding than generally thought. Author also thinks they are rather product of personal interest, ad hoc actions and local circumstances especially within Lebanese expatriate community. They seem to be less inciated and directed by the wishes of Hezbollah central leadership.