US anti-cartel campaign may hit Iran hardest, former intelligence officer says

Iran’s expansive operations across Latin America, built through Hezbollah, drug-cartel alliances, and deep military cooperation with Venezuela, could suffer a major setback if President Nicolás Maduro is removed from power, according to Danny Citrinowicz, former head of the Iran branch in Israeli Defense Intelligence. 

Speaking in an interview with i24NEWS' Ariel Oseran, Citrinowicz described Venezuela as “a logistical hub” that enables Tehran to recruit operatives, move weapons, and fund Hezbollah through drug-trafficking networks.

Citrinowicz, now a senior researcher at Israel’s INSS and a nonresident fellow at the Atlantic Council, detailed how Iran has leveraged Shia communities, criminal cartels, and state partners to embed itself across the Western Hemisphere. 

“Wherever you find a Shia community in Latin America, you’ll find a religious center controlled by Hezbollah,” he said, noting that Lebanese-Shia migration has made Hezbollah, rather than Iran’s Persian-speaking envoys, the primary bridge to local populations.

Beyond religious and social influence, Iran operates through universities such as Al-Mustafa International University, which he describes as a pipeline for indoctrinating students in support of Iran’s supreme leader and its anti-Western ideology. The combination of indoctrination, community penetration, and Hezbollah’s extensive funding needs creates a fertile platform for recruiting operatives, he said—just as occurred ahead of the 1990s bombings of Israel’s embassy and the AMIA center in Argentina.

But it is Venezuela, he emphasized, that sits at the heart of Iran’s Western Hemisphere footprint. Tehran has supplied the Maduro regime with drones, missiles, and other military technology while establishing a joint drone factory near Caracas. “There are constant flights from Tehran to Venezuela,” he said. “If Maduro won’t be there anymore, it will cause a severe blow to the Iranian ambitions in Latin America.”

Citrinowicz highlighted how Iran’s Quds Force uses Venezuelan cover—passports, safe territory, and freedom of movement—to plot attacks abroad, citing a recent attempt to assassinate Israel’s ambassador in Mexico. He added that Hezbollah’s partnerships with Latin American cartels serve not only operational purposes but also financial ones. The group, he explained, relies increasingly on drug-trafficking revenues to offset Iran’s own budgetary strains and to fund fighters, pensions, and reconstruction after years of war in Syria and ongoing conflict with Israel.

Hezbollah’s presence in the tri-border area of Paraguay, Argentina, and Brazil remains central to these operations, allowing networks to move cocaine to West Africa, where Hezbollah-linked groups are also expanding, and launder profits back to Lebanon. 

This is why, Citrinowicz argued, the Trump administration’s recent counter-narcotics campaign in Venezuela is “important for two main reasons: preventing Iran from using Venezuela as their hub, and preventing Hezbollah from using its connection with the cartels to gather money.”

Iran’s military and economic influence projects extend well beyond the Americas, he noted, with drone-manufacturing joint ventures in Tajikistan and Russia, and weapons transfers to Sudan—all designed to expand Iran’s global footprint and political leverage. “These developments are extremely alarming,” he warned. “We have to think how we can prevent Iran from becoming a major weapons exporter in the world.”

Looking ahead, he cautioned that Iran’s destabilizing potential remains broad, from maritime disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz to regional diplomatic tensions that could flare if Israel strikes Iranian targets or if the Houthis resume attacks on Saudi Arabia. Even emerging rapprochement between Tehran and Gulf states, he said, is strategic but fragile: “The ideological enmity is still there.”

Yet it is Venezuela, he stressed again, that represents Iran’s most valuable outpost in the Western Hemisphere—and its most vulnerable.

“If Maduro falls,” Citrinowicz concluded, “Iran loses its gateway to Latin America.”