Sanctions Evasion

The UK’s Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation (OFSI) has levied a £160,000 monetary penalty on Lloyds Banking Group for violations of Russia sanctions made by its subsidiary Bank of Scotland Plc. 

The U.S. Treasury Department on Friday blacklisted nine ships and their owners in response to Iran’s ongoing crackdown on protestors, including Tehran’s decision to shut down internet access within the country. 

Two UK-registered cryptocurrency exchanges, Zedcex and Zedxion, operated as front companies for an infrastructure that processed approximately $1 billion in funds linked to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), according to new analysis from TRM Labs. 

Amid all of the spectacle that has come with the U.S. capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, federal prosecutors have quietly amended a key claim they leveled against the South American leader last year. They no longer assert that the drug-trafficking organization he allegedly led—“Cartel de los Soles”—really exists. 

Botswana is weighing a “golden passport” program that would grant citizenship to foreigners making a one-off investment of up to about $100,000, as the country searches for fresh revenue streams.

Iran is offering to sell ballistic missiles, drones, warships, and other advanced weapons systems to foreign governments in exchange for payment in cryptocurrency, the Financial Times reported.

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.

Russian billionaire Mikhail Fridman and other oligarchs are exploiting European investment treaties to sue Ukraine for hundreds of millions, and in some cases billions, of dollars, according to a new investigation by Follow the Money.

A Russian “shadow fleet” tanker sanctioned by the UK, EU and U.S. continued transporting oil in late 2025, underscoring what an investigation by Follow the Money describes as the limited impact Western measures have had on the cash flow Moscow earns from crude exports.

Major U.S. chipmakers Intel, Advanced Micro Devices and Texas Instruments, along with a Warren Buffett–owned electronics distributor, are facing a series of lawsuits accusing them of failing to prevent their semiconductors from ending up in Russian missiles and drones used to attack civilians in Ukraine.