Antoine Kassis, a cousin of former Syrian President Bashar Assad, has been sentenced to 30 years in a US prison after being convicted in a transnational narco-terrorism case involving cocaine trafficking, military-grade weapons and support for Colombia’s National Liberation Army (ELN).
US prosecutors said Kassis, 59, used his connections within the former Assad regime to arrange the exchange of weapons for hundreds of kilograms of cocaine in a scheme involving co-conspirators based in Colombia and Mexico.
According to court records and evidence presented at trial, Kassis agreed beginning in April 2024 to provide assault rifles, machine guns and missiles diverted from Syrian military stockpiles to the ELN in return for 500 kilograms of cocaine. Authorities said the arrangement was valued at approximately $14 million.
The ELN is a Colombia-based terrorist organization designated by the US Secretary of State as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist Organization.
Prosecutors said Kassis told participants in the deal that he was working directly with General Maher Assad, brother of former President Bashar Assad, and other senior Syrian military officials. He also claimed the Syrian government would facilitate the shipment of cocaine through the Port of Latakia, where he allegedly paid the government $10,000 for each kilogram imported.
The investigation found that Kassis traveled from Lebanon to Kenya to meet what he believed was an ELN weapons inspector before signing an agreement to import a container of fruit from Colombia to Latakia that was intended to conceal the cocaine shipment. Authorities said the purported buyers and the weapons inspector were undercover US law enforcement agents.
Evidence presented at trial also alleged that Kassis retained access to weapons supplied to the Assad regime by Russia and Iran even after the regime’s fall.
Prosecutors said Kassis and his associates laundered nearly $100 million in less than 18 months for transnational criminal organizations, including the Sinaloa Cartel and Hamas.
Following his arrest in Kenya, Kassis was extradited to the United States in May 2025. A federal jury subsequently convicted him of narco-terrorism and providing material support to a foreign terrorist organization. The case was investigated by the Drug Enforcement Administration’s Special Operations Division Bilateral Investigations Unit with assistance from US and international law enforcement agencies.
