Illicit Finance

A Malaysian court on Tuesday ordered jailed former Prime Minister Najib Razak to pay $1.3 billion to SRC International, a former unit of scandal-linked state fund 1MDB, after finding him liable for losses incurred by the company.

Hungary’s foreign minister privately shared sensitive European Union discussions with Russia and worked with Moscow to try to remove sanctioned Russian individuals, banks, and companies from EU blacklists.

U.S. authorities have charged an alleged hacker in connection with a 2021 exploit of decentralized exchange Uranium Finance that drained about $53 million in crypto and helped force the platform to shut down.

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.

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. 

The trial of Russian businessman Dmitry Klyuev, accused by French prosecutors of laundering proceeds of the $230 million Magnitsky Affair fraud through luxury purchases in France, opened in Paris on Monday. 

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.

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.

Florida shell companies and virtual office addresses are at the center of an expanding international investigation into at least $260 million in funds tied to Argentina’s top soccer authority.