Shipping

The European Union will widen the criteria for its Iran sanctions regime to include people and entities responsible for obstructing freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz.

South American governments are deploying soldiers, drones, sniffer dogs, artificial intelligence, and expanded port surveillance to try to stem a record flow of cocaine, but the crackdown is having little impact as traffickers change up routes and tactics.

Britain’s National Crime Agency (NCA) has charged shipping financier John Michael Ormerod with alleged money laundering and breaches of Russia sanctions.

The U.S. Treasury imposed a fresh round of Iran-related sanctions on Wednesday, targeting what it described as the illicit oil-shipping empire of Iranian magnate Mohammad Hossein Shamkhani and a Hezbollah-linked oil-for-gold laundering network tied to Venezuela. 

The Trump administration eased sanctions on Venezuela’s state-run financial system on Tuesday in a move aimed at supporting the country’s battered economy, reviving oil-sector activity, and stabilizing the government of acting President Delcy Rodriguez.  

The Trump administration has allowed a temporary sanctions waiver on Russian oil to expire, ending a short-lived reprieve that had permitted the sale of some blacklisted Russian crude and pulling back from a policy that was intended to help contain surging global oil prices.

The Trump administration is expected to extend its waiver of sanctions on Russian oil this week, according to former Treasury and State Department officials cited by Semafor, a step that could tee up a similar extension for Iranian oil later this month as the White House weighs fuel prices and broader market stability. 

Iran is seeking to collect transit tolls from oil tankers passing through the Strait of Hormuz in cryptocurrency, a move that could deepen the role of digital assets in the country’s sanctions-hit economy.

Companies importing goods from China are increasingly using accounting maneuvers, middlemen, and in some cases apparent fraud to reduce the value of shipments entering the United States and cut the tariffs they owe.

Chilean authorities uncovered organized criminal networks that investigators say stole, processed, and shipped copper on a vast scale to Peru and China, exposing a trade worth an estimated 817 billion pesos, or about $917 million, between 2020 and 2025.