(L-R) Haj Fawaz, Mohamed Fawaz, Alie Fawaz, and Hussien FawazAccording to a February 2026 report by the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism (ICT), the prominent Fawaz family is a key node in Hezbollah’s global financing ecosystem, demonstrating how the organisation uses extended family networks in the diaspora to move money, maintain ties, and project influence.
The study, titled “Hezbollah’s Financing Ecosystem – Hezbollah’s Use of Clan Networks in the Diaspora: The Fawaz Clan Case Study,” combines open-source data and U.S. Treasury designations to trace the clan’s origins in South Lebanon, its expansion across West Africa, and the ties that the report claims bind clan members to Hezbollah operatives both in Lebanon and abroad.
The Fawaz clan is portrayed in the ICT as an example of how family-controlled businesses and tightly knit kinship networks can blur the distinction between legitimate economic activity and support for a proscribed militant movement. According to the report, the clan’s commercial footprint in West Africa is supplemented by individuals who perform fundraising and operational roles for Hezbollah, as identified by the institute.
According to the report, by combining remittances, private businesses, and positions within Hezbollah’s Foreign Relations Department (FRD), diaspora families like the Fawazes establish long-term financial and organisational conduits that connect overseas Shiite communities to the movement’s leadership in Lebanon. The ICT situates the Fawaz story within a broader historical context: waves of Lebanese migration from southern Lebanon since the early twentieth century have resulted in dispersed yet enduring diasporic communities across West Africa, Latin America, and elsewhere.
Even as migrant families have localised and second- and third-generation members adopt new identities, the institute observes that ties to kin in Lebanon have persisted, most visibly through remittances.
The report cites documented remittances to Lebanon totalling approximately $6 billion in 2023, emphasising the country’s reliance on funds sent home by expatriate communities. These flows became especially important during crises, such as the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the 2024 conflict between Hezbollah and Israel.
The ICT claims that during and immediately following the 2024 hostilities, the pattern of cash inflows from the diaspora changed. Tighter controls at Beirut International Airport, as well as other disruptions, made suitcase cash transfers more difficult following a ceasefire and related security measures on November 27, 2024.
At the same time, the institute emphasises the importance of Al-Qard al-Hasan bank, which was designated by the US Treasury in 2016 due to alleged ties to Hezbollah, as a financial channel for many in the Shiite community, noting that the bank’s temporary disruption during the 2024 conflict limited one avenue for transfers.
According to the report, these disruptions resulted in a rise in the use of formal banking channels where possible, as well as an increase in less regulated alternatives. The ICT points to an increase in the use of cryptocurrencies and digital cash-transfer apps, as well as at least one instance in which a payments provider, Wish Money, shut down a charity account allegedly linked to Hezbollah following regulatory warnings.
The institute warns that unregistered intermediaries and lax supervision create opaque pathways that complicate efforts to track down the ultimate recipients of funds. The report’s central theme is that Hezbollah emerged from a social landscape based on families, clans, and religious institutions in southern Lebanon, and that it has replicated a similar model elsewhere.
In Lebanon, Hezbollah’s influence is based on a combination of social welfare services, schools, clinics, and charities, armed resistance, and political organisation. According to the ICT, Hezbollah has extended this social welfare model into diaspora communities, gaining influence through local charities, youth groups, and religious institutions run or supported by movement members.
To manage and sustain these international ties, the report focuses on Hezbollah’s Foreign Relations Department (FRD), which is in charge of diaspora relations. According to the ICT, the FRD, also known as Hezbollah’s “ambassadors,” is a semi-overt arm responsible for fundraising, recruitment, and community outreach in Shiite communities around the world. According to the report, these representatives include both operatives dispatched from Lebanon and local supporters with family ties to senior members of Hezbollah. According to the institute, many FRD-linked individuals have training and experience that goes beyond basic community organising.
The Fawaz clan, according to the report, exemplifies how this architecture works in practice: clan-level fundraising and business activity are coordinated locally, FRD representatives manage ties and channel funds, and the Hezbollah headquarters in Lebanon oversees allocation and use. The ICT refers to leaked data from a cyberattack on Al-Qard al-Hasan, which allegedly identified a FRD representative in the Ivory Coast, Sheikh Qubaisi, as a conduit for large transfers from the country to Lebanon.
The ICT analysis emphasises the difficulty of distinguishing legal remittances and business activity from illegal financing when both are embedded in family and community life. The report warns that clan solidarity, legitimate commerce, and longstanding patterns of support for relatives in Lebanon can be used to sustain an organisation with political, social, and military components. It claims that this social embedding complicates traditional counter-financing measures, which typically target discrete transactions or formal institutions.
The institute’s findings contribute to a larger debate about how to monitor and regulate diaspora financial flows without jeopardising legitimate remittance channels on which many Lebanese households rely. The ICT uses the Fawaz clan as a case study to demonstrate the mechanics of alleged Hezbollah-linked fundraising in the diaspora, as well as the challenges that governments and financial institutions face in responding. The report is primarily based on open-source documents and public US designations; its conclusions are framed as the institute’s examination of how clan networks, commercial activity, and FRD-linked individuals can intersect to form resilient channels of support.
