Illicit Finance

Families of Americans killed, injured or taken hostage in Hamas’s October, 7 2023 attack on Israel have accused Binance founder Changpeng “CZ” Zhao and his cryptocurrency exchange of helping militant groups move millions of dollars, according to the Financial Times.

Fugitive former Wirecard executive Jan Marsalek has been linked to a sprawling, multibillion-dollar money laundering network that British investigators say connects street-level drug dealers in the UK to sanctioned Russian oligarchs and the Kremlin’s security services, the Financial Times reported.

French investigators have stepped up their probe into alleged corruption at Patrick Drahi’s Altice telecoms group with a series of coordinated raids across the country, seizing cash, luxury goods and other assets, Bloomberg reported.

Law enforcement raids on luxury Kyiv apartments, including one bathroom fitted with a golden toilet, and images of duffel bags stuffed with cash have plunged President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s administration into its biggest corruption crisis since he took office, the Financial Times reported. 

Wildlife traffickers are funneling dirty money through the same financial pipelines used for such illicit activity as human trafficking, child sexual exploitation, and the illegal sale of weapons around the world, according to new University of Waterloo research cited by CBC News. 

Federal prosecutors examined Jeffrey Epstein for money laundering and operating an unlicensed money-transmitting business in 2007, according to emails from the deceased sex trafficker’s personal Yahoo account obtained by Bloomberg.

Mexico’s banking lobby is urging lenders to adopt tougher rules on illicit finance that go beyond current law, after U.S. authorities moved to sever three Mexican firms from the American financial system for allegedly laundering money for fentanyl traffickers, according to Bloomberg.

A former director at Trenchant, an L3Harris Technologies subsidiary that develops offensive cyber tools, pleaded guilty Wednesday to stealing and reselling trade secrets worth $35 million to a Russian broker whose clients include the Russian government, Bloomberg reported.

European lawmakers will push for wildlife trafficking to be recognized as organized crime by 2030 and for tougher global enforcement at next month’s United Nations meeting on endangered species, Euronews reported. 

Sub-Saharan Africa’s two largest economies, South Africa and Nigeria, were delisted Friday from a global watchdog’s roster of jurisdictions under increased monitoring for illicit money flows, alongside Mozambique and Burkina Faso.