Human Trafficking

President Donald Trump signed an executive order Tuesday directing federal financial regulators to treat undocumented immigrants as potential credit and compliance risks.

Britain’s National Crime Agency on Monday launched its first joint initiative with the financial industry aimed at detecting and disrupting payments by U.K. offenders who pay facilitators overseas to livestream the sexual abuse of children. 

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.

Jeffrey Epstein’s office relied on a dedicated team at American Express Co. to book travel for dozens of women, in some cases arranging sham itineraries designed to help them obtain visas.

Epstein’s Centurion relationship manager and more than a dozen American Express colleagues booked, canceled, and rebooked flights for women whose travel patterns and supporting documents two human-trafficking experts say should have raised red flags.

World Liberty Financial, the Trump family-linked crypto venture, announced a deal in November to enable its USD1 stablecoin on a crypto network whose flagship resort project was controlled by two men the U.S. government had sanctioned weeks earlier as alleged operatives of an Asian scam ring.

The European Union’s anti-fraud office has opened a formal investigation into Lord Peter Mandelson, the bloc’s former trade commissioner and recently dismissed British ambassador to Washington, over alleged misconduct during his four years in Brussels. 

U.S. officials on Wednesday struck at Southeast Asian scam compounds defrauding Americans and a global fentanyl supply chain, announcing criminal charges, sanctions, and the seizure of hundreds of fraudulent websites in a pair of coordinated enforcement actions.

Cybercrime syndicates operating in Cambodia have grown so large and politically connected that the industry now rivals the country’s formal economy, with online scam networks accused of corrupting officials, enslaving workers, and defrauding victims around the world.

Telegram is still hosting Xinbi Guarantee, a Chinese-language black market that British officials have levied sanctions on and accused of facilitating crypto scams and human trafficking.

Jeffrey Epstein received $25 million in late 2015 for consulting work tied to a U.S. Justice Department tax-evasion settlement with Swiss private bank Edmond de Rothschild Group.