Corruption

OFAC designated more than a dozen individuals and entities linked to the Sinaloa Cartel, targeting two separate networks accused of fentanyl trafficking and money laundering, including one that allegedly converted bulk U.S. drug cash into cryptocurrency for transfer to cartel leadership in Mexico.

Spain’s National Court has charged former Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero with money laundering, influence peddling, document falsification, and related criminal offenses stemming from the government’s €53-million pandemic-era bailout of Plus Ultra airlines.

Alex Saab, the businessman widely seen as the financial fixer for ousted Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, was charged with money laundering in federal court in Miami on Monday.

The president of South America’s soccer federation faces an ethics complaint alleging he took millions of dollars from funds the body recovered after the 2015 global soccer corruption scandal.

Indian conglomerate Adani Enterprises Ltd. has agreed to pay $275 million to settle U.S. allegations that it imported Iranian liquefied petroleum gas through a Dubai-based middleman while routing dollar payments through American banks, OFAC disclosed on Monday.

Polish lawmakers on Friday approved a bill regulating cryptocurrencies as a scandal over the collapse of the country’s biggest crypto exchange widened and questions deepened over whether President Karol Nawrocki, who has twice vetoed similar measures, will sign it into law.

Financial-crime authorities across the Middle East and North Africa hold powers that look adequate on paper but fail in practice, with anti-corruption agencies unable to freeze assets, prosecutors acting as political gatekeepers, and high-risk sectors filing almost no suspicious activity reports.

A new report from a U.S. think tank says industrial-scale cyber-fraud operations embedded in Southeast Asia’s special economic zones now generate an estimated $50 billion to $75 billion per year, and should be considered a hybrid security threat rather than a consumer-protection issue.

Brazilian lawmaker and presidential candidate Flavio Bolsonaro negotiated $24 million in financing from jailed banker Daniel Vorcaro to bankroll a biographical film about his father, former President Jair Bolsonaro.

Ukraine’s anti-corruption agencies have named former presidential chief of staff Andriy Yermak as an official suspect in a 460-million-hryvnia ($10.5 million) money-laundering scheme, marking a significant escalation in a graft investigation that has shaken President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s government.