Oversight Agency

Two Democratic U.S. senators pressed Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Paul Atkins on Monday to explain the abrupt resignation of the agency’s enforcement director and whether it was tied to the SEC’s pullback from cryptocurrency cases linked to Donald Trump.

Cuba was preparing on Monday to receive a sanctioned Russian tanker carrying about 730,000 barrels of oil, offering a temporary lifeline to the island as it struggles through a fuel crisis worsened by a U.S. oil blockade.

Britain’s Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation (OFSI) has fined Apple Distribution International Ltd £390,000 for breaching Russian sanctions, saying the subsidiary of Apple instructed a UK bank to make two payments totaling £635,618.75 to a Russian streaming company owned by a designated entity.

The U.S. Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) on Monday issued an advisory urging banks and other financial institutions to step up detection and reporting of healthcare fraud tied to Medicare, Medicaid and other public health benefit programs.

Hungary has recovered and returned less than a fifth of EU funds flagged for potential fraud over the past decade, according to data from the bloc’s anti-fraud watchdog reported by the Financial Times. 

Iranian-linked wealth has continued to find its way into London property despite years of Western sanctions, with luxury homes, apartments, and a boutique hotel tied to figures accused by British and U.S. authorities of supporting Tehran’s sanctions-evasion networks.

The Trump administration is weighing whether to designate Brazil’s two largest drug gangs as terrorist organizations, a step that could expand the U.S. sanctions toolkit to include financial restrictions on the groups and their associates.

The Federal Trade Commission has warned four of the largest payment processors against denying customers access to financial services because of their political or religious views.

UBS AG processed an $8-million transfer for Ghislaine Maxwell in late 2019 that ultimately helped fund the cash purchase of the New Hampshire estate where she later went into hiding before her 2020 arrest.

Britain has expanded its crackdown on Southeast Asia’s scam economy by sanctioning Xinbi, a Chinese-language crypto marketplace that officials say helped service scam centers, along with Legend Innovation Co., the operator of Cambodia’s “#8 Park” compound, and six individuals allegedly tied to the network.