Talal Chahine is the founder of La Shish, a once-booming Middle Eastern restaurant chain in Detroit. He’s also a fugitive, having fled to Lebanon back in 2006 after getting waist-deep into legal trouble with the federal government.
Now Chahine has added terror cash mule to his long list of troubles.
According to the Justice Department, Chahine and a man named Mohammad Bazzi secretly elbowed their way back into La Shish ownership, trying to use it as a front to bankroll Hezbollah’s terror operations in the Middle East.
Bazzi was branded a “designated global terrorist” by the Treasury Department in 2018 for his involvement in propping up Hezbollah’s carnage. That designation legally barred him from any business dealings in the United States.
But that didn’t stop Bazzi and Chahine.
Together, this terror-linked tag-team tried to funnel nearly $1 million out of Michigan to Hezbollah by quietly selling off La Shish real estate and using shadowy middlemen to wash the money clean.
Bazzi got nailed. He was busted in Romania in 2023 and extradited to the United States.
He has since pleaded guilty in a New York federal court and was just sentenced to time served, financial restitution, and permanent deportation out of the country, courtesy of the Justice Department.
And Chahine?
Still in hiding.
Two decades on the run, and now he’s wanted not just for tax fraud, but for allegedly trying to finance a terrorist network under the cover of hummus and tabouli.
Jason Mattera is a New York Times bestselling author and an Emmy-nominated crime correspondent for Newsmax. Get all of his latest reports here.
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