Emerging Threat

A network of TikTok accounts utilizing coded emojis, faction nicknames, and narco ballads are advertising the Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generación (CJNG) in an apparent attempt to recruit new members for one of Mexico’s most powerful criminal organizations, according to a report released this week by social-media analysis firm Graphika.

Money laundering offenses in the Republic of Ireland have surged to unprecedented levels, with gardaí recording close to 2,800 cases last year and struggling to keep pace with the volume.

Thousands of seemingly legitimate UK high street shops are being used by organized-crime groups to launder illicit cash, sell illegal goods, and feed wider criminal networks, with at least £47 billion a year drained from the British economy by the schemes.

Thailand’s main international airport has become a reluctant hub in a sprawling illegal trade funneling wild animals to India, where social media “petfluencers” and exotic cafes are fueling a boom in demand for rare creatures.

World Liberty Financial, the Trump family-linked crypto venture, announced a deal in November to enable its USD1 stablecoin on a crypto network whose flagship resort project was controlled by two men the U.S. government had sanctioned weeks earlier as alleged operatives of an Asian scam ring.

Accountants, lawyers and real estate agents in Australia will face multimillion-dollar fines for assisting the illicit tobacco trade under a sweeping expansion of anti-money-laundering and counterterrorism financing laws taking effect on July 1.

OFAC designated 35 entities and individuals it said help run Iran’s shadow-banking system, focusing on private companies known as “rahbars” that move money for sanctioned Iranian banks through foreign shell companies and front-company accounts.

A deepening military and economic partnership between North Korea and Russia is systematically undermining the international sanctions architecture built over decades to constrain Pyongyang, while fueling a conventional arms buildup that raises the risk of war on the Korean Peninsula.

China’s two-decade effort to build an international financial system anchored by its currency, the renminbi, is gaining traction as wars and Western sanctions push U.S. adversaries to seek alternatives to the dollar.

The Trump administration has cut more than 4,000 employees from some of the nation’s top law-enforcement agencies even as it has pledged to get tough on crime, according to U.S. Justice Department records.