The Obama administration on April 23 identified two Lebanese financial institutions for laundering millions of dollars to support Hezbollah.

The Treasury Department announced that two Lebanese exchange houses – Kassem Rmeiti & Co. for Exchange and Halwai Exchange Co. – were transferring drugs profit funds through the U.S. financial system on behalf of Hezbollah.

Both institutions have now been labeled as having “primary money laundering concerns” under the U.S. Patriot Act.

“Hezbollah is operating like a major drug cartel,” said Derek Maltz, who oversees the U.S. probe into Hezbollah in the Drug Enforcement Administration.

“These proceeds are funding violence against Americas,” Maltz said.

While stating that Treasury’s actions were not “an indictment of the Lebanese financial system as a whole,” Treasury Undersecretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence David Cohen nonetheless stressed that the agency still had “concerns about the adequacy of the supervision” of the country’s money exchange-houses.