Human Trafficking

Cryptocurrency flows to suspected human trafficking services surged 85% in 2025, reaching hundreds of millions of dollars across identified services.

Deutsche Bank continued providing services to Jeffrey Epstein for months after telling the disgraced financier it would end its relationship with him in late 2018 and only moved to terminate all of his accounts following his final arrest in July 2019.

The Council of Europe has agreed to remove the diplomatic immunity granted to Thorbjoern Jagland, clearing the way for Norwegian police to investigate the former secretary general’s newly uncovered relationship with Jeffrey Epstein.

UBS AG opened accounts for Ghislaine Maxwell in early 2014 and went on to manage as much as $19 million for her in the years before she was convicted for helping Jeffrey Epstein sexually traffic teenage girls, Reuters reported. 

The Thai military said it has recovered extensive evidence of transnational online fraud from a Cambodian “scam compound” seized during border clashes last year, including target lists, scam scripts, and equipment used to disguise operations, Reuters said. 

The U.S. Justice Department’s latest release of documents on its investigation of Jeffrey Epstein includes the personally identifiable information of dozens of sex-trafficking victims, according to new analysis by The Wall Street Journal. 

Sen. Ron Wyden, the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, is pressing Bank of New York Mellon Corp. for details about $378 million in wire transfers the bank processed involving accounts linked to Jeffrey Epstein, according to a Bloomberg report.

Spanish National Police, working with Germany’s Bavarian State Criminal Police Office and supported by Europol, arrested 34 people in Spain during an operation against the international criminal organization known as “Black Axe,” Europol announced. 

U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday vowed to designate Venezuela’s government a “Foreign Terrorist Organization” (FTO) and ordered a “total and complete” blockade of sanctioned oil tankers moving into and out of the country.

The U.S. government is threatening to downgrade Fiji to the lowest tier in its global human trafficking rankings unless authorities take “decisive action” against a religious group linked to human trafficking and transnational organized crime, OCCRP reported.