Exclusive: Laundering Money and Weapons for Cartels and Terror Groups

Editor’s note: This story has be updated to reflect DOJ’s and Alirio Rafael Quintero’s response. (6:18pm ET 5/23/25)

A grand jury has indicted three men for a multi-million dollar money laundering operation in support of foreign terrorist organizations and drug cartels. According to a newly unsealed indictment which included terrorism charges, Wisam Nagib Kherfan-Okde, Alirio Rafael Quintero-Quintero, and Antoine Kassis helped facilitate guns and money for the Sinaloa cartel in Mexico and the National Liberation Army in Colombia using, in part, weapons from the former Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria. 

According to newly unsealed charging documents, “from approximately April 2024 to the present, KHERFAN, QUINTERO, and KASSIS agreed to supply military-grade weapons diverted from the Assad regime in Syria to the National Liberation Army (ELN) in exchange for hundreds of kilograms of cocaine. In furtherance of the scheme, KASSIS traveled from Lebanon to Kenya to meet a weapons inspector from the National Liberation Army (ELN).” The indictment continues, “KASSIS then signed a contract to import a shipping container full of fruit from Colombia to the Port of Latakia, Syria, intending that the container would actually contain 500 kilograms of cocaine. KASSIS intended to oversee the distribution of the cocaine in the Middle East, and KHERFAN and QUINTERO intended to launder the proceeds on his behalf.”

Efforts to identify and reach the attorneys for the two of men were unsuccessful. An attorney for Quintero told Court Watch that his client was set up by the DEA, and that the purported representatives from ELN were DEA agents. The lawyer opined that it was an attempt by the DEA to “justify its budget.” Antoine Kassis was arrested in Kenya had an initial appearance in the Eastern District of Virginia a few minutes ago. Arrest warrants have been issued for the remaining two men. The Department of Justice declined to comment.