The BBC reports that Ecuador has broken up a drug ring that explicitly existed to fund terrorist operations for Iranian-backed and Lebanon-based Hezbollah. The ring specialized in providing cocaine for users in South America, the Middle East, and Europe:

Police in Ecuador say they have broken up an international drugs ring which was raising money for the Islamic militant group, Hezbollah.

The authorities have declined to give details of the gang's alleged links with the group, but say it was sending Hezbollah up to 70% of its profits.

Ecuadorean officials say the drugs network was run by a Lebanese restaurant owner in the capital, Quito. ... The police investigation, codenamed Operation Damascus, led to the arrests of a further 19 people Brazil and the United States.

Whoever got arrested in the US for participating in this trafficking scheme should face charges of treason, if the suspects hold American citizenship and two witnesses can attest to their knowledge of the ring's purpose. Funding Islamist terrorism abroad while we engage them as enemies qualifies as giving aid and comfort. Regardless of European willful naivete on Hezbollah's purposes, they operate as a terrorist organization under the direction of Damascus and with Iranian funding, and they have no problem using terror inside and outside Lebanon to further the Islamist goals of their al-Qaeda compatriots.

People who use cocaine and other recreational drugs should see this as a wake-up call in more ways than one. That little vial or baggie you buy to feel hip and cool doesn't come out of nowhere. Even without the Middle Eastern connections, most "distribution channels" rely on extortion and murder for market control. Add in the Hezbollah funding, however, and you can draw a direct line between the party animals who do a little blow and the pro-democracy activists getting blown up.

Just say no.

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» Cocaine Ring in Ecuador Linked to Hezbollah from In the Bullpen
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