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Book Purports to Reveal `Armenian Connection' to Lebanese Drug Trade
14:09, December 20, 2012
There's an article in today's edition of YaLibnan, entitled `Lebanese
Drug Trade: Multiple Ethnicities and Political Rivalries' by Ghassan
Karam that mentions Armenians vis-à-vis the drug trade inLebanon
The article is the 8th installment of the book: The Lebanese
Connection: Corruption, Civil War, And The International Drug Traffic
by Jonathan Marshall a fellow at Stanford Studies In Middle Eastern
And Islamic Societies And Cultures.
The book is described as a scholarly account of the Lebanese drug
trade based on previously classified documents of The DEA and
otherUSdrug related agencies. Karam says that the book is banned
inLebanon.
Here's the excerpt from the book:
There was another ethnic group that played a relatively substantial
role in the promotion and distribution of Lebanese drugs although its
role has also been underreported. Many seem surprised when the
Armenian role is mentioned but in retrospect this appears to be a
natural development. When the Armenians were forced to flee the
Turkish massacres many came to Lebanon, Syria, Greece, France, Panama
and the US. The resulting ethnic gangs in each of these locations
acted as bridge heads for Lebanese drugs.
One Lebanese Armenian, Hagop Kevorkian, was a major drug and foreign
exchange runner and a partner of the notorious Sami Khoury while many
of the Marseille heroin labs were reputed to be owned by ethnic
Armenians. This drug role was eventually helped by the political
structure that emanated among the Lebanese Armenian community.
The Tashnaq, an anti communist party, received help from the CIA; the
SAVAK in the 1960's and was able to transform the Beirut branch of the
party into a policy setting organization for the rest of the world.
Both the Tashnaq and its counterpart the Huchaq tried to avoid being
sucked into the Lebanese internecine civil war But that was not to be.
ASALA; Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia, attacked
the World Council of Churches in Beirut for encouraging Armenians to
emigrate to North America. ASALA also had strong relationships with
Syria, PLO and Abu Nidal. As a result the Tashnaq had to respond to
this leftist challenge by forming the Justice Commandos Against
Armenian Genocide (JCAG).
But as expected such organizations require substantial funding and
both were drawn to the easy revenue from drugs. The significant drug
activities can best be seen through the numerous arrests that were
done by the Swedish, Danish and the French police against
drugsmugglers that were Lebanese Armenians. Noubar Soufian of JCAG was
the most notorious and was arrested by the NY police in 1981 for
smuggling Lebanese heroin to the US. Noubar Soufian managed to get
back to Beirut where he became a significant arms smuggler for the
Phalange and the Armenians in exchange for heroin.
http://hetq.am/eng/news/21725/book-purports-to-reveal-%E2%80%9Carmenian-connection%E2%80%9D-to-lebanese-drug-trade.html
14:09, December 20, 2012
There's an article in today's edition of YaLibnan, entitled `Lebanese
Drug Trade: Multiple Ethnicities and Political Rivalries' by Ghassan
Karam that mentions Armenians vis-à-vis the drug trade inLebanon
The article is the 8th installment of the book: The Lebanese
Connection: Corruption, Civil War, And The International Drug Traffic
by Jonathan Marshall a fellow at Stanford Studies In Middle Eastern
And Islamic Societies And Cultures.
The book is described as a scholarly account of the Lebanese drug
trade based on previously classified documents of The DEA and
otherUSdrug related agencies. Karam says that the book is banned
inLebanon.
Here's the excerpt from the book:
There was another ethnic group that played a relatively substantial
role in the promotion and distribution of Lebanese drugs although its
role has also been underreported. Many seem surprised when the
Armenian role is mentioned but in retrospect this appears to be a
natural development. When the Armenians were forced to flee the
Turkish massacres many came to Lebanon, Syria, Greece, France, Panama
and the US. The resulting ethnic gangs in each of these locations
acted as bridge heads for Lebanese drugs.
One Lebanese Armenian, Hagop Kevorkian, was a major drug and foreign
exchange runner and a partner of the notorious Sami Khoury while many
of the Marseille heroin labs were reputed to be owned by ethnic
Armenians. This drug role was eventually helped by the political
structure that emanated among the Lebanese Armenian community.
The Tashnaq, an anti communist party, received help from the CIA; the
SAVAK in the 1960's and was able to transform the Beirut branch of the
party into a policy setting organization for the rest of the world.
Both the Tashnaq and its counterpart the Huchaq tried to avoid being
sucked into the Lebanese internecine civil war But that was not to be.
ASALA; Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia, attacked
the World Council of Churches in Beirut for encouraging Armenians to
emigrate to North America. ASALA also had strong relationships with
Syria, PLO and Abu Nidal. As a result the Tashnaq had to respond to
this leftist challenge by forming the Justice Commandos Against
Armenian Genocide (JCAG).
But as expected such organizations require substantial funding and
both were drawn to the easy revenue from drugs. The significant drug
activities can best be seen through the numerous arrests that were
done by the Swedish, Danish and the French police against
drugsmugglers that were Lebanese Armenians. Noubar Soufian of JCAG was
the most notorious and was arrested by the NY police in 1981 for
smuggling Lebanese heroin to the US. Noubar Soufian managed to get
back to Beirut where he became a significant arms smuggler for the
Phalange and the Armenians in exchange for heroin.
http://hetq.am/eng/news/21725/book-purports-to-reveal-%E2%80%9Carmenian-connection%E2%80%9D-to-lebanese-drug-trade.html