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NEW PODCAST DROP!  Coercive Capital with Elaine Dezenski — The Corruption Continuum with Scott Greytak & Casey Michel

🎯 Russia Explores Plan to Merge Oil Giants Into Mega Producer.  The resulting company would easily be the world’s second-biggest crude producer, pumping three times the output of Exxon Mobil. WSJ

🇷🇺 EU’s Von der Leyen Suggests US LNG Could Replace Russian Supply Bloomberg

🌎 Crypto ‘Mixer’ Gets 12 1/2 Years for Money Laundering.  Sterlingov provided a service that jumbled digital tokens to make it more difficult to find the source of proceeds from illegal activities. Bloomberg 

🌎 Spanish phone giant Telefónica to pay $85M to resolve US probe of Venezuelan bribery scheme.  Spain’s largest telecommunications operator to resolve a DOJ investigation into a scheme to bribe Venezuelan officials with a lavish Caribbean vacation and expensive watches. AP

🌎 Trump to revive ‘maximum pressure’ on Iran via sanctions.  One of his first priorities will be to renew his campaign against Iran by backing Israeli strikes against the Islamic Republic while imposing sanctions on Tehran’s oil exports. NYP

🚩 3 charged in Iran-linked murder plots, with one targeting Donald Trump ABC

🌎 A Xi Enforcer Is Revving Up China’s Spy Machine – and Alarming the West.  Agency accused of vast cyberattacks on U.S. has grown more powerful with trusted protégé of Chinese leader at the helm. WSJ

🌎 Californians Finally Get Serious on Crime.  On Tuesday, voters decided to trust their own eyes. What took so long? Free Press

🌎 ‘The king is back:’ Binance billionaire CZ plots life after prison.  Now a self-described passive investor in crypto, Zhao claims his “felon status” hasn’t deterred people from doing business with him. Fortune

🌎 Plea deals revived for alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and others.  A military judge voids an order by Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to throw out the deals. AP

🚩 On Election Day, Biden-Harris Admin Quietly Waived Terrorism Sanctions on Palestinian Government Free Beacon

RUSSIA & CHINA

📌 ECB pushes Raiffeisen, UniCredit to hold capital for Russia risk Reuters

📌 Top China Hedge Fund Urges Clients to Pull Cash on Trump Risks Bloomberg

📌 House panel questions chip manufacturing equipment makers over any ties to China Hill

📌 Trump attorney’s phone tapped by Chinese hackers CNN

CORRUPTION & FINANCIAL CRIME

💸 Massive corruption scandal in Jackson, Miss.: Mayor, DA, councilman all indicted USAT

💸 Qatar agrees to kick Hamas out of Doha following US request CNN

💸 Bill Hwang’s Lawyers Suggest No Prison Time in Archegos Case Bloomberg

💸 Two Swiss men charged with money laundering Swissinfo

CRYPTO & CYBER

🔐 CEO of Canadian Crypto Holding Returns Safely After Paying $720K Ransom CoinDesk

🔐 Digital ID Trials Test Anonymous KYC For Mainland Chinese In Hong Kong Forbes

🔐 Lost Money in the 2016 Bitfinex Hack? DOJ Says There Are ‘No Victims’ Decrypt

TRAFFICKING

🚚 Federal judge strikes down Harris-Biden admin effort to grant ‘amnesty’ to illegal migrants married to US citizens NYP

🚚 Adviser to El Chapo son indicted in Chicago CST

🚚 Are giant rats the future in sniffing out wildlife trafficking? USAT

RESEARCH AND MULTIMEDIA

📘 Ecuador’s Risky War on Narcos New Yorker 

📘 New $72K Migrant Smuggling Routes to the U.S. Start With Charter Flights Reuters

📘 Money Laundering National Risk Assessment Singapore MAS

📘 A better anti-corruption machine Brookings

📘 Ransomware Victim Insights RUSI

📘 Standards and interoperability: The future of the global financial system Atlantic Council

📘 U.S. Foreign Extortion Prevention Act: New Tool in the Fight Against Global Corruption TI 

📘 How We Uncovered the Modus Operandi of Criminals Smuggling Illegal Gold out of Venezuela Pulitzer Center

📘 Illicit Drugs Are Undermining Pacific Security USIP

 


ILLICIT EDGE INSIGHTS

📌 China’s Oppression of the Uyghurs in Xinjiang

📌 How Are U.S. Financial Sanctions Developed?

📌 Top 10 Ways Iran Supports and Empowers Hamas

📌 Iran’s Nuclear Weapons Program: A Dangerous Evolution

📌 Top 10 Ways Money Launderers Are Caught Red-Handed 

📌 What are the Top 10 Books on Corruption, Kleptocracy, and Illicit Financing?

📌 What Are 10 Ways China Is Stealing Intellectual Property?

📌 These are Mexico’s Most Powerful Drug Cartels

📌 The Hypocrisy of Labeling Terrorists as ‘Militants’

📌 Sanctions and the IRGC: How Iran’s Paramilitary Group Profits from Economic Hardship

📌 What are the Arguments For and Against ESG?

 


VIDEOS

 


INFLUENCERS

Kim Zetter / Brian Krebs / Nicole Perlroth /
Josh Rogin / Ellen Nakashima / Matt Levitt /
Clarissa Ward / Gary Kasparov / Joseph Cox / Mark Dubowitz
Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya / Bill Browder / Jen Easterly /
Zack Kopplin / Laura Shin / Dmitri Alperovitch / Tom Keatinge
Catherine Belton / Nazanin Boniadi / Chris Krebs /
Kevin Hall / Farnaz Fassihi / Kevin Collier / Patrick Howell O’Neill /
Michael McFaul / Jonathan Schanzer / Catalin Cimpanu /
Liza Lin / Enes Kanter FREEDOM / Bianna Golodryga

 


RESOURCES

Financial Action Task Force /
Egmont Group /
Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project /
International Consortium of Investigative Journalists /
Money Laundering Watch/

C4ADS /
Combating Terrorism Center /
Royal United Services Institute /

 


PODCASTS

🎙️ Conversation with an Exiled Venezuelan Opposition Leader Lawfare

🎙️ Hezbollah’s Secret Missile Cities, Russia Advances In Ukraine, & Hamas Chief Fears For Life President’s Daily Brief

🎙️ Fox News, defamation, and our new information reality Click Here

🎙️ Deep Cover: George Santos Pushkin

🎙️ Conversation with Former FATF President RUSI

🎙 ️The problem with the Nigerian economy has nothing to do with crypto Click Here

🎙 ️Crypto ATMs, a Senator Convicted, AUSTRAC Report, Timeshare Fraud, etc. AML Conversations

🎙 ️Sanctions and Russia’s Nuclear Diplomacy RUSI

🎙 ️Partnering with terrorists to fight terrorists Generation Jihad 

🎙 ️Allen Stanford: The Lord of the Lies Scamfluencers

 


IN OTHER NEWS

🎯 DOJ moving to wind down Trump criminal cases before he takes office.  The step complies with long-standing DOJ policy that a sitting president can’t be prosecuted. NBC

🌎 Where the Rich Can Buy Secrecy, Evade Laws, and Claim a Slice of Space.  From Switzerland to Qatar to Kazakhstan, the countries clamoring to entice the ultrawealthy with a suite of new privileges. New Republic 

🌎 Canada orders TikTok to shut down over national risk concerns.  It’s unclear what security risks ByteDance poses as the Canadian government provides no details. Bleepingcomputer 

🌎 TD Worker Fighting Money Laundering Accused of Stealing Data.  Sewell distributed it on Telegram to others who she instructed to open bank accounts to deposit the checks and split the profits with others. Bloomberg

💸 “America’s Most Convenient Bank” – The Irony of TD Bank’s Slogan Anti-Money Laundering WTF

🌎 How western sanctions are squeezing Russia.  Three types of sanctions severely limit Russia’s ability to import and therefore to make use of its export earnings. FT 

🌎 U.S. Agency Warns Employees About Phone Use Amid Ongoing China Hack.  Consumer Financial Protection Bureau tells workers to reduce use of cellphones for work due to risk from China-linked telecom intrusion. WSJ

🔐 Featured Podcast: Everything You Need To Know About Crypto Cartels Chainalysis

🌎 UK Sanctions Russia-backed Wagner Group Successor Africa Corps.  The measures were the first direct sanctions against Africa Corps by a G7 country. AFP 

🇨🇳 China should learn from Russian ‘resilience’ in sanctions defense SCMP

🌎 “Narco sub” carrying 8,000 pounds of cocaine intercepted in Pacific Ocean.  The seizure comes just weeks after the Mexican navy announced it had seized more than 8.3 tons of drugs. CBS

🚚 What This Week’s Big Cocaine Haul Means for US Coke Users VICE

🎯 A huge bank pleaded guilty to conspiring to launder money, so why weren’t top executives charged?  By any measure, the lawbreaking by the U.S. subsidiary of Canada’s Toronto-Dominion Bank was spectacular. LAT

🎙️ Illicit Edge Original: The Corruption Continuum with Elaine Dezenski, Scott Greytak & Casey Michel Coercive Capital

🌎 China Hack Enabled Vast Spying on U.S. Officials, Likely Ensnaring Thousands of Contacts.  Hackers scooped up call logs, unencrypted texts and some audio, piercing America’s communications infrastructure. WSJ

💥 FBI Seeks Public Help to Identify Chinese Hackers Behind Global Cyber Intrusions Hacker News 

🌎 Turkey Launching Ruble Swap to Ease Trade Squeezed by Sanctions.  Firms are finding creative ways around payment issues while creating lucrative opportunities for middlemen. Bloomberg 

🚩 To counter the Axis of Evasion, the US must tackle third-country procurement networks Atlantic Council 

RUSSIA & CHINA

📌 Panama to cancel flags on four US-sanctioned LNG vessels Reuters 

📌 China’s cheap Iranian oil supply at risk from tighter Trump sanctions Reuters 

📌 AstraZeneca Says Current, Former Executives Involved in China Probe Bloomberg 

📌 Sanctions evasion helps Russia dominate former Soviet republics Hill

📌 U.S. citizen arrested in Germany on suspicion of offering military intelligence to China NBC

CORRUPTION & FINANCIAL CRIME

💸 Hungary’s Mol Sees Strong Cash Flow After Russian Oil Deal Bloomberg

💸 U.S. blacklist sanctions evasion network tied to Bosnian-Serb leader Milorad Dodik UPI

💸 Jurors find Broward exec guilty in $53M ‘Ponzi scheme’ targeting Haitians MH

💸 Jim Jordan, Andy Biggs slam FBI for revising 2022 crime data, demand answers NYP

💸 Nigerian Arrested in US for Multi-Million-Dollar Romance Fraud OCCRP

 

CRYPTO & CYBER

🔐 Here’s How Quickly Gary Gensler Could Lose His SEC Chair Gig Under Trump CoinDesk

🔐 French regulator probes Peter Thiel-backed betting platform Politico

🔐 Former FTX CTO Gary Wang Asks Court for No Jail Time CoinDesk

🔐 North Korean Hackers Target Crypto Firms with Hidden Risk Malware Hacker News

TRAFFICKING

🚚 Global raids rescue 3,200 potential victims of trafficking and identify 17,800 irregular migrants Interpol

🚚 Spanish police seize record cocaine haul in banana shipment from Ecuador Guardian

🚚 Swiss Pair Charged With Laundering 830 Kg Of Gold AFP

 


COMPLIANCE TOOLBOX

🔑 Cryptocurrency Regulation Tracker Atlantic Council

🔑 COMTRADE: Using Trade Data to Uncover Fraud and Smuggling OCCRP

🔑 2022 Rule of Law Index World Justice Project

🔑 Global Organized Crime Index Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime

🔑 Anti-Corruption Helpdesk Transparency International

🔑 Flight Intelligence for Investigators Icarus Flights, C4ADS

🔑 Global Legislative Map: Violent Extremist and Terrorist-Related Online Content Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism

🔑 Basel AML Index Map Basel Institute on Governance

🔑 Scorched Earth: Using NASA Fire Data to Monitor War Zones Bellingcat

Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC)

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Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN)

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State Department

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Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency

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Federal Reserve

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Department of Justice

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Commerce Department

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Securities and Exchange Commission

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Federal Bureau of Investigation

Office of the Comptroller of the Currency

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Federal Trade Commission

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HM Treasury

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Interpol

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