Illicit Finance

The surging value of Pokémon trading cards has attracted organized-crime groups seeking to launder illicit funds through the largely unregulated collectables market.

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.

Russian intelligence-linked hackers who penetrated the U.S. Treasury Department in the 2020 SolarWinds cyberattack gained the ability to access email accounts across the entire agency, including staff working on sanctions and financial-crime investigations.

Bitcoin Depot, formerly the largest operator of cryptocurrency ATMs in the United States, filed for voluntary Chapter 11 bankruptcy Sunday and took its roughly 9,700 kiosks offline.

OFSI has fined Deutsche Bank AG’s London branch £165,000 for processing two payments totaling £635,618.75 to a Russian-owned online media streaming company in breach of UK sanctions on Moscow. 

The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission is investigating a surge of more than $800 million in oil futures trades that occurred moments before President Trump announced on social media that he was postponing strikes on Tehran’s energy infrastructure.

Gérard Lhéritier, the French businessman convicted of running what prosecutors called the largest Ponzi scheme ever uncovered in France, has avoided prison after negotiating a last-minute plea bargain citing age and health.

Britain issued a new sanctions waiver on Tuesday allowing the import of certain diesel and jet fuel processed in third countries from Russian-origin oil, even as the United States separately tightened sanctions on networks it accused of supporting Hamas and helping Iran move oil and petrochemical revenue.

Small towns, school districts, and utilities across the United States lack the staffing and basic cyberdefenses needed to fend off a new generation of AI-enabled hacking threats even as larger institutions scramble to shore up their systems.

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.