Sanctions Evasion

Kyrgyzstan is prepared to take the European Union to court if Brussels imposes sanctions on the Central Asian state over allegations it has helped funnel restricted goods to Russia.

Western governments are being urged to tighten controls on cryptocurrency after new research warned that criminals and hostile states have laundered an estimated $350 billion using crypto over the past two decades.

Russia continues to receive large volumes of Western-made aviation parts through third-country intermediaries despite EU and U.S. sanctions.

Stablecoin issuer Tether said it has frozen about $4.2 billion of its USDT tokens over links to “illicit activity,” with most of the freezes occurring in the past three years, as authorities worldwide intensify efforts to curb crypto-related crime.

Finnish authorities are tightening scrutiny of real-estate purchases after a series of Russian-linked property deals raised fears that land and buildings near military facilities and critical infrastructure could be used for espionage or sabotage.

Two cryptocurrency exchanges registered in the United Kingdom and marketed as processing more than $1 billion a day were fronted by a purported executive who “doesn’t seem to exist” and was instead portrayed using stock footage, OCCRP reported. 

Autonomous AI “agents” that can initiate and execute transactions without real-time human input are compressing the timelines that anti-money laundering (AML) compliance teams and law enforcement rely on to detect and stop illicit crypto activity.

A senior U.S. senator has opened an inquiry into Binance seeking records on alleged transactions that funneled nearly $2 billion to Iran-linked terrorist organizations and other entities and payments that helped circumvent sanctions on Russian oil, Bloomberg said. 

Western governments marked the anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine with new measures targeting the Kremlin’s revenue streams and enabling networks, despite stalled efforts by the EU to approve a broad sanctions package.

The head of Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF), Mohamed “Hemedti” Hamdan Dagalo, appears to own a portfolio of property in Dubai valued at approximately $1.7 million, according to new research by The Sentry.