Son of powerful Hezbollah member captured in Colombia over illegal charcoal company

The son of a powerful Hezbollah member has been arrested in Colombia after running a company exporting coal to other companies run by the terrorist group.
Mahdy Akil Helbawi, who goes by the alias “Turco,” was captured in Cucuta after being followed by the DEA and FBI since July 2021 for supplying coal to Israel, Kuwait, Lebanon, and the United Arab Emirates.
Uniformed police and the FBI found the son of Amer Mohamed Akil Rada, identified by the US Treasury Department and the DEA as a high-level member of Hezbollah.
His son Mahdy appears as the legal representative of commercial company Zanga S.A.S. which exports charcoal from Colombia to Lebanon.
He stands accused of illicit exploitation of renewable natural resources, aggravated money laundering, illicit enrichment, and use of false documents.

His father was one of the operative members of this terrorist group that carried out the terrorist attack against AMIA in 1994 in Argentina, in which 85 people died, according to the DEA.
According to the authorities, Zanga S.A.S. is a paper company with alleged headquarters in Barranquilla. It appeared legal in the markets of Middle Eastern countries through false documents.
Authorities said: “The investigation that began in July 2021 uncovered that, for the creation of this commercial company, they opened several bank accounts … and that alias ‘Turco’ subsequently withdrew the money in cash in Colombia immediately in order to enrich himself through this criminal activity.”
According to Colombian authorities and the FBI, the company is responsible for the deforestation of more than 32,210 critically endangered Guayacán trees.
This “resulted in a devastating loss of biodiversity and negatively affecting at least 32 hectares of native forests in La Guajira, with the sole intention of illicitly producing charcoal.”

Colonel Edwin Masleider Urrego Pedraza, director of Criminal Investigation and Interpol (Dijín), said Mahdy managed to send more than 2,449 tonnes of charcoal to the Middle East between 2015 and 2024.
Between July and August 2021, he made arrangements for the transport of 1,400 bags of charcoal bound for the city of Cartagena, which would be sent to his father.
In May 2022, 28 tons of charcoal were seized in the city of Riohacha, “which he was transporting in a tractor-trailer with a false public document, consisting of an import declaration, which did not coincide with the one reported in their systems.”
Mahdy attended a virtual public hearing before a Judge of Control of Guarantees, who, given the strength of the material evidence, ordered him to be detained in prison.