Illicit Finance

New details about the allegations against the rapper Gims have emerged after French authorities charged the Congolese music star with money laundering linked to millions of euros in suspicious transactions.

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. 

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.

Britain’s Financial Conduct Authority has launched a consultation on guidance for the UK’s future crypto regime, as the regulator moves toward opening authorizations for crypto firms later this year. 

The U.S. Treasury Department is shutting down a program that shared cybersecurity threat intelligence with banks and other financial firms after cutting its funding.

U.S. lawyers are increasingly warning clients not to treat artificial-intelligence chatbots as confidential sounding boards after a federal judge in New York ruled that a former financial-services executive could not withhold chatbot-generated materials from prosecutors in a securities-fraud case.

The organizer of New York City’s annual SantaCon bar crawl was arrested on wire-fraud charges on Wednesday after federal prosecutors alleged he diverted money that was supposed to go to charity and used it instead for personal expenses.

The U.S. Treasury Department on Tuesday imposed sanctions on six people and businesses it said were tied to a money laundering and cash-smuggling network operated by Cartel del Noreste, a Mexican drug trafficking group active near the U.S.-Mexico border.

Hungary’s incoming prime minister, Péter Magyar, is pledging to oversee a broad anti-corruption campaign once in office, including the creation of new watchdog bodies and investigations of government contracts.

Hui Ka Yan, the founder of embattled Chinese property developer Evergrande, pleaded guilty this week to multiple charges including embezzlement of assets and corporate bribery, in a major milestone in the unraveling of one of China’s biggest corporate collapses.