The container was labeled “tractor parts.” But inside, Turkish customs officials found lab equipment for making explosives. The officials seized the shipment as it traveled through Turkey, en route from Iran to Venezuela.

“Experts from Turkey’s Atomic Institute determined there were no traces of radioactive material, but said the equipment was enough to set up an explosives lab,” said Suleyman Tosun, a customs official at the Mediterranean port of Mersin.

The “tractor parts” also included barrels of chemicals labeled with “danger” signs. The exact chemicals are still unknown.

An anonymous Iranian official told the Associated Press that the shipment contained “nothing important.”

Iran’s proxy Hezbollah is already heavily involved in Venezuela. It even receives support from the Venezuelan government, according to the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control. For Iran, Venezuela is an important base of operations, and it is just a stone’s throw away from the mainland United States.

Hezbollah also has links with Mexican drug-smuggling cartels. Hezbollah is in the drug business, but the even greater danger is that it could smuggle something much more catastrophically explosive into the U.S.

There is a grave danger growing in Latin America, one America’s leaders too often neglect. What was Venezuela planning to do with an explosives lab? More than likely, those explosives would have been used by Hezbollah in some kind of terror attack. And perhaps a more important question is: What has Iran shipped to Venezuela already that customs officials didn’t catch?

For more information, see our article “Danger Lurks in America’s Backyard.”