Central Bank governor Riad Salameh said Friday "the Lebanese Canadian Bank abides by Lebanese laws and international standards," a day after the Treasury Department accused it of laundering hundreds of millions of dollars in drug profits for a cocaine smuggling organization with ties to Hizbullah. The bank "receives the absolute support of the Central Bank," Salameh said. "Management of this bank is highly professional and the bank has high liquidity reserves," he said. "We would…

U.S. authorities have blacklisted one of Beirut’s major financial institutions, Lebanese Canadian Bank, alleging that it is part of a drug trafficking network that benefited the banned Islamist group Hezbollah. The bank was involved in a complex scheme in which cocaine was shipped from Colombia and Panama and retailed in Europe and the Middle East, U.S. officials said. They alleged that the proceeds were deposited with LCB in Beirut, wired to U.S. accounts and used…