A Lebanese-Syrian national was sentenced on Thursday for conspiring to provide material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization and for narco-terrorism conspiracy.
Antoine Kassis, 59, received 30 years in prison for the narco-terrorism conspiracy and 20 years for conspiring to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization, with the sentences to run concurrently, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia.
According to prosecutors, the Lebanon-based drug trafficker used his ties to Syria’s former Assad regime to arrange shipments of military-grade weapons to Colombia’s National Liberation Army (ELN), a U.S.-designated terrorist organization, in exchange for hundreds of kilograms of cocaine.
Federal prosecutors said Kassis claimed to be a cousin of former Syrian President Bashar Assad and said he worked with the former president’s younger brother Maher Assad and other senior Syrian military officials.
They alleged he planned to import 500 kilograms of cocaine through Syria’s Port of Latakia and oversee its distribution across the Middle East.
Evidence presented at trial showed Kassis’s co-conspirators moved nearly $100 million in less than 18 months and laundered money for criminal organizations “such as the Sinaloa Cartel, Hamas, and others,” according to the Justice Department.
Kassis was arrested in Kenya and extradited to the United States in May 2025.
