Illicit Finance

Police raided the Arab World Institute in Paris on Monday as prosecutors widened an investigation into former French culture minister Jack Lang and his daughter, Caroline, over suspected financial links to Jeffrey Epstein.

Ukraine’s anti-corruption authorities on Monday accused former energy minister German Galushchenko of laundering millions of dollars in kickbacks in a high-profile corruption case that has shaken the wartime government.

The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) added Kuwait and Papua New Guinea to its “grey list” of countries under closer monitoring, saying both have pledged to fix weaknesses in their safeguards against illicit money flows. 

Louis Vuitton’s Netherlands unit has agreed to pay a €500,000 settlement after Dutch authorities concluded the company failed to adequately vet customers who repeatedly made large cash purchases over a prolonged period.

Cryptocurrency flows to suspected human trafficking services surged 85% in 2025, reaching hundreds of millions of dollars across identified services.

Deutsche Bank continued providing services to Jeffrey Epstein for months after telling the disgraced financier it would end its relationship with him in late 2018 and only moved to terminate all of his accounts following his final arrest in July 2019.

Paxful Holdings Inc., a peer-to-peer virtual currency trading platform, was sentenced on Tuesday to pay a $4-million criminal penalty after pleading guilty to conspiracies tied to illegal prostitution, anti-money-laundering failures and transmitting criminal proceeds.

The Council of Europe has agreed to remove the diplomatic immunity granted to Thorbjoern Jagland, clearing the way for Norwegian police to investigate the former secretary general’s newly uncovered relationship with Jeffrey Epstein.

A bipartisan coalition of U.S. House lawmakers has introduced legislation that would order the State Department to add Russian mercenary groups to its list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs).

Trade misinvoicing may have siphoned roughly $3.64 trillion in illicit value out of the Western hemisphere over the decade from 2013 to 2022, with annual “trade value gaps” climbing to a new high of about $473.2 billion in 2022, according to a new report by Global Financial Integrity (GFI).