Sanctions Evasion

Ukraine is seeing early signs that sanctions are disrupting Russia’s access to some foreign technology used in Shahed drones, although newly manufactured Western and Asian components are still being found in the weapons.

A donor to Nigel Farage’s Reform UK is the registered manager and shareholder of a Dubai-based company that previously had business ties to an Iranian conglomerate later placed under U.S. sanctions.

Iran is seeking to collect transit tolls from oil tankers passing through the Strait of Hormuz in cryptocurrency, a move that could deepen the role of digital assets in the country’s sanctions-hit economy.

The U.S. Treasury Department on Wednesday proposed new anti-money-laundering and sanctions-compliance rules for permitted payment stablecoin issuers, marking a major step in implementing the 2025 GENIUS Act and expanding federal oversight of the sector.

China has helped Iran blunt the impact of U.S. sanctions over the past five years by buying the bulk of its oil exports and supporting a complex financial and shipping network that has allowed Tehran to keep earning billions of dollars in revenue.

A Georgia-based company has inked a deal with Russian-installed authorities in occupied eastern Ukraine to export coal, chemicals, and metals, opening what Le Monde described as a new channel for Moscow to skirt international sanctions. 

A Russian cryptocurrency payments network founded by sanctioned actors is expanding into Africa as Moscow seeks new channels to move money around western restrictions imposed after the invasion of Ukraine.

Several senior Binance compliance officials overseeing sanctions, investigations, and financial-crime monitoring have left the company in recent months as the crypto exchange faces renewed scrutiny over alleged sanctions evasion and illicit-finance risks.

A politically connected blockchain project that partnered with the Trump family’s crypto firm promoted a proposed resort in Timor-Leste involving three people later sanctioned by the United States for ties to the Prince Group, an alleged Southeast Asian scam syndicate.

Trade misinvoicing is occurring at “massive scale” across Asian supply chains, with discrepancies in reported invoice values reaching a record $1.7 trillion in 2022 across developing Asia.