There's an area in South America called the Tri-Border Area. Have you heard about it before? Represented are Hezbollah, Hamas, Colombian extremists, Chinese Triads and Russian Mafia groups, to mention a few. To this mix there are reports of Al Qaeda agents. This topic and area of high interest is seldom written about in western media, even rarely mentioned. It is of paramount importance to put this troublesome spot on the map and it needs exposure.

In Ciudad del Este, Foz do Iguaçu and Puerto Iguazú which is located in this area, the illegal activity is immense. The turnout for the region is roughly estimated to more than 20 Billion Dollars annually.

SOUTH AMERICA'S TERROR FINANCIAL CENTER

September 30, 2006


Three South American countries and the United States are expected to open "an intelligence center aimed primarily at combating criminal and militant activity" in the triangle where the three South American countries share a border, says intelligence service Stratfor.com. This little known, but highly important area is well known to be a financial center for Hezbollah and perhaps other terror linked organizations. The announcement marks an interesting shift in the way the U.S. is fighting the war on terror.

International Herald Tribune: Brazil says triple border area under constant vigilance

February 8, 2007


The Triple Border, a porous region where Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina converge, is home to more than 20,000 Arabs — mostly Lebanese Muslims — as well as drug and arms traffickers, smugglers and counterfeiters. It has also been described by the U.S. State Department as a focal point for Islamic extremism in Latin America.

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The U.S. government contends that radical Islamic groups including Hezbollah and Hamas receive funds from the Triple Border area.

It has described the area as "South America's busiest contraband and smuggling center, where billions of dollars annually are generated from arms trafficking, drug smuggling, counterfeiting, intellectual property-rights violations, and other crimes."

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April 18, 2007


In March, Brazilian authorities drafted a new antiterrorism law instituting stiff penalties for a variety of violent acts committed by both individuals and organizations. The new legislation, expected to pass Brazil's congress in a modified form, will likely be used to target criminal gangs from Brazil's indigent favela neighborhoods, not Middle Eastern terrorist groups operating in the Argentina-Brazil-Paraguay Tri-Border Area (TBA). Brazil denies that illegal terrorist activities are being conducted in the TBA, and it does not regard groups like Hizballah or Hamas as terrorist organizations.

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The TBA is especially important to Hizballah. The group raises nearly $10,000,000 per year there, according to a study produced by the U.S. Naval War College. The report cited U.S. Southern Command estimates "that Islamist terrorist groups raise between three hundred million and five hundred million dollars per year in the Triple Frontier and the duty-free zones of Iquique, Colon, Maicao, and Margarita Island."

June 7, 2007


There is a difference between evidence justifying cause for concern, and evidence justifying cause of action. The best unclassified evidence available to us today clearly demonstrates that there is a definite cause for concern.

The Tri-border area (TBA) of Ciudad de Este, Paraguay, Foz do Iguacu, Brazil, and Puerto Iguazu, Argentina is a lawless region that operates as the hub of a multi-billion dollar business in money laundering, arms sales, drug trafficking, and other criminal enterprises according to a 2006 report issued by the U.S. State Dept.

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An exhaustive open-source investigation into the presence of terrorist groups operating in the Tri-Border Area of South America was conducted in 2003 by the Federal Research Division of the Library of Congress and is, quite frankly, the most extensive analysis of multi-language sources (books, newspapers, journal articles, published investigations) available, to our knowledge. It should be required reading for those interested in the TBA region.

Conservatives such as Tancredo are angry that Bush has funded only one-tenth of the new Border Patrol agents that Congress has authorized.

November 9, 2007


Today we report in the New York Daily News about a bizarre case unfolding in the Los Angeles communities Bell and Cudahy, where a special task force collared a dozen Arab-American and Latino suspects involved in a seemingly small-time drug and counterfeit clothing ring. While on the surface it doesn't appear to be terrorism-related, our sources say Operation Bell Bottoms targeted a "classic case of terrorism financing," with the defendants smuggling profits from selling dope and counterfeit goods in L.A. back to Iran-backed Shiite terror group Hezbollah in Syria and Lebanon.

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Also, while unmentioned so far in court papers, Hezbollah is well known to have profited from the illegal sale of name-brand counterfeits produced in the tri-border area of Argentina, Paraguay and Brazil.

CNN has learned from coalition intelligence sources that several top terrorist operatives met recently in the area -- where the borders of Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay intersect -- to plan attacks against U.S. and Israeli targets in the Western hemisphere.

After WW II, at least five German U-boats reached Argentina with no less than 50 high ranking Third Reich officials on board. During the trip they sunk a US battle ship and the Brazilian cruiser Bahia with a death toll of more than 400, including US citizens. Both the US and the British Government have systematically covered up the operation. Why? Did they take Hitler to Patagonia?

Supporting their research with irrefutable first hand documentation, two Argentine investigators, Carlos De Napoli and Juan Salinas, made an extraordinary contribution to unveil what has been called the last secret of World War II. Übersee Süd, Overseas South in English, is the name of the operation that, according to this investigation, helped high Nazi officials to escape from the Soviet fist under the umbrella of the British Government and the US hawks

An Argentine official regarded the intention of the George W. Bush family to settle on the Acuifero Guarani (Paraguay) as surprising, besides being a bad signal for the governments of the region.

Luis D Elia, undersecretary for the Social Habitat in the Argentine Federal Planning Ministry, issued a memo partially reproduced by digital INFOBAE.com, in which he spoke of the purchase by Bush of a 98,842-acre farm in northern Paraguay, between Brazil and Bolivia.

May 20th 2008


the movie will be about an American federal agent who goes undercover in South America's "Triple Frontier" (the dangerous tri-border of Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay) to break up a terrorist-funding network.

Sep 10, 2008


Walser also says criminal organizations - gangs, as well traffickers of drugs, weapons and humans - demonstrate the need for better hemispheric security cooperation. "Citizen security and fighting domestic and international crime are central concerns for all of the Americas," he said. The senior policy analyst pointed to the threat of global terrorism from radical Islamic groups in the tri-border area between Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay.

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Source: U.S. Department of State

24 Sep 2008


Hizbollah, Hamas, al-Qaida and Islamic Jihad have all been associated with the TBA and elements of its large Arab diaspora population. Recent Argentinean and US intelligence suggests that these groups do not currently pose an operational threat. Terrorist activity there appears confined to fundraising (estimated to be hundreds of millions of dollars by the Department of Homeland Security), recruitment and training.

At least one of these groups has, however, conducted operations in the region in the past. Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the 1992 Israeli Embassy bombing and is assumed to be responsible for the 1994 AMIA bombing in Buenos Aires. It is plausible that these groups, if conditions permit, may conduct operations again in the future; if not in Latin America then elsewhere in the Western Hemisphere.

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In reality, the TBA currently exists only as a dormant safe-haven but the potential remains for evolution to operational capacity. Al-Qaida and Hizbollah have worked together in the past; commentators remain divided on whether they will do so in the future. It is possible that sectarian divides will not be overcome. Those who believe there is a potential for future collaboration believe it's most likely to take place outside the Middle East in areas such as the Latin American TBA.

11/1/2008


Brazilian intelligence officials also believed that Al Qaeda has been active in the TBA since the mid-1990s. Citing an anonymous high-ranking official of the Brazilian Intelligence Agency, Veja, a leading Brazilian newsweekly, reported that Osama Bin Laden had visited Foz do Iguaca in 1995. The source told the publication that his agency had obtained a 28-minute video of Bin Laden participating in meetings at a mosque during his visit. Al Qaeda's Khalid Sheik Mohammed is also believed to have visited the TBA in December 1995 and in 1998. In late December 2001, after the US-led coalition ousted the Taliban from power, a CNN reporter found a large tourist poster from the TBA at an Al Qaeda safe house in Kabul.

27 October 2008


War exercises by the Brazilian military along the border of Brazil with Paraguay are escalating tensions between the South American neighbors.

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Paraguay's President Fernando Lugo warned Brazil in a news conference in Asunción that "not even one millimeter of the territorial sovereignty of the country can be bothered" or "the Paraguayan reaction will be swift."

Paraguayan TV showed armed Brazilian troops occupying the "Friendship Bridge" separating the countries at Ciudad del Este. The maneuvers come amid a series of clashes between Paraguayan peasants and militias controlled by Brazilian farmers in the country.

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