Corruption

Israel’s largest defense company, Elbit Systems, has been suspended by NATO’s procurement arm and barred from bidding for work amid a widening corruption investigation into alleged bribery around military contracts.

The UK government is taking aim at corrupt bankers, lawyers, and accountants and deploying new tech tools to identify dirty money as part of a new strategy to root out tens of billions in illicit funds entering the country each year.

Switzerland’s attorney general has filed criminal charges against UBS and a former Credit Suisse compliance officer, alleging failures to prevent money laundering linked to the long-running Mozambique “tuna bonds” scandal, according to The Wall Street Journal.

A Singapore court has allowed a $2.7-billion lawsuit against Standard Chartered Bank to proceed over its alleged role in the looting of Malaysia’s 1MDB sovereign fund, according to Reuters.

French investigators have stepped up their probe into alleged corruption at Patrick Drahi’s Altice telecoms group with a series of coordinated raids across the country, seizing cash, luxury goods and other assets, Bloomberg reported.

Law enforcement raids on luxury Kyiv apartments, including one bathroom fitted with a golden toilet, and images of duffel bags stuffed with cash have plunged President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s administration into its biggest corruption crisis since he took office, the Financial Times reported. 

Albanian organized crime groups have tightened their grip at home and expanded across Europe while drawing minimal pushback from Brussels, according to a Follow the Money investigation conducted with media partner BLAST. 

Belgian authorities have officially charged former European commissioner Didier Reynders with money laundering, a person familiar with the case confirmed to Follow the Money. He is not being held in custody.

The U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) on Thursday blacklisted a Mexican human-smuggling ring, imposing sanctions against four individuals and 16 companies it says helped illegally migrate to the United States.  The Cancun-based Bhardwaj Human Smuggling Organization has illicitly transported thousands of people from Europe, the Middle East, South America, and Asia […]

Portuguese authorities are examining more than 20 individuals linked to a Novo Banco SA real-estate transaction after a fresh round of raids on the bank, according to multiple news reports.