Due to its geographical location, Lebanon was known for drug trafficking during the 20th century, as the Port of Beirut gave smugglers direct links to various cities around the Mediterranean.
French-speaking Lebanese wannabe gangsters obtained morphine base from Turkish opium producers and then sold it on to contacts in the Corsican mafia.
The Corsican mobsters then processed the morphine into heroin using an elaborate network of clandestine conversion laboratories in Marseilles and smuggled the drug into Canada on cargo ships.
[7] Due to the vast international Lebanese diaspora and along with a certain amount of organised criminals active in their respective communities, the Beqaa Valley has become one of the most infamous marijuana and hashish exporting regions in the world.
Criminal organisations are mostly based around extended crime families with a large number of associates from their community, such as the Alameddines who are Sunnis originally from the Miniyeh region in North Lebanon.
[10] On 6 April 2017, eleven people affiliated with a Lebanese drug clan were arrested in Montreal and Laval as part of Project Afliction, a ten-month investigation by the SPVM.
The clan transported the drug into Quebec by air, accumulated $3 million in monthly revenue, and supplied some of the cocaine sold by the Hells Angels and the Italian mafia in the greater Montreal area.