Illicit Finance

The U.S. Treasury Department on Wednesday imposed new sanctions on four companies it said were operating in Venezuela’s oil sector, along with associated oil tankers.

Donald Trump’s return to the presidency has marked a stark shift in white-collar crime enforcement, with federal prosecutors and investigators stepping back from complex foreign-bribery, money-laundering, and corruption cases, The Wall Street Journal reported. 

Abubakar Malami, Nigeria’s former attorney general and minister of justice, has been charged with 16 counts of money laundering and conspiracy involving billions of naira, Reuters reported.

Malaysia’s High Court sentenced ex-Prime Minister Najib Razak to 15 years in prison after convicting him on 25 charges of money laundering and abuse of power linked to the looting of the 1MDB sovereign-wealth fund, The Wall Street Journal reported.

A loose ecosystem of young cybercriminals known as “the Com” is increasingly being linked to a widening range of online and real-world offenses, from ransomware-style corporate attacks to the hacking of Pornhub users’ data, according to The Guardian.

Australian regulators took coordinated action on Thursday to address weaknesses in the anti-money laundering and risk-management controls of Bendigo and Adelaide Bank, including the imposition of a A$50 million operational-risk capital charge. 

Authorities raided the residential properties and offices of French Culture Minister Rachida Dati on Thursday as part of a corruption probe linked to her previous tenure as a member of the European Parliament, Bloomberg reported. 

Google is suing an alleged Chinese-speaking cybercriminal group it says helped drive a sprawling phishing operation that targeted Americans with fraudulent text messages impersonating government agencies and major companies, NBC News reported.

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 UK government will examine the role of cryptocurrency donations in politics as part of a wider review of party-financing rules triggered by a bribery case involving a Reform UK politician, Bloomberg reported.