Government

Ecuador’s financial regulators have launched a joint probe into possible money laundering at Banco Guayaquil, the country’s third-largest bank by net profit.

The U.S. Treasury Department on Thursday imposed sanctions on Iraq’s deputy oil minister, three senior leaders of Iran-aligned militias, and four Iraqi companies, accusing them of diverting Iraqi oil to benefit Iran’s government and its proxy forces.

Small, little-known Chinese companies are openly marketing and shipping engines, batteries, fiber-optic cables, and other dual-use components to Iranian and Russian drone factories despite U.S. sanctions.

The United States is preparing to lift sanctions on Eritrea, according to an internal U.S. government document seen by Reuters, a move analysts told the news agency was driven by the Horn of Africa nation’s strategic position on the Red Sea shipping route.

The United Kingdom on Tuesday imposed sanctions on 35 individuals and entities accused of trafficking vulnerable migrants to fight on Russia’s front line in Ukraine and of supplying components to the Kremlin’s drone manufacturing operations, the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office said.

The United States and its Gulf allies have circulated a draft U.N. Security Council resolution that would threaten Iran with sanctions or other measures unless it halts attacks on ships in the Strait of Hormuz and stops imposing “illegal tolls.”

Money laundering offenses in the Republic of Ireland have surged to unprecedented levels, with gardaí recording close to 2,800 cases last year and struggling to keep pace with the volume.

China has for the first time invoked a law targeting companies that comply with foreign sanctions Beijing rejects, escalating its pushback against U.S. blacklisting of several oil refineries over purchases of Iranian crude.

Iran’s largest cryptocurrency exchange was founded and is controlled by two brothers from the Kharrazi family, one of the Islamic Republic’s most influential clerical dynasties and now closely tied to new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei.

Canada is moving to create a powerful new law enforcement agency dedicated to investigating and prosecuting financial crime, a step that places Ottawa on a sharply different course from Washington, where the Trump administration has scaled back federal fraud enforcement.