24-28 June 2024 - 13 news

1/ EU has issued the 14th package of sanctions against Russia?? (Reg 2024/1739, 2024/1745, 2024/1746, 2024/1776 & published (!) on Sunday 30 June Reg 2024/1865?? )

2/ FATF revised the list of countries under increased monitoring?? (gray list) and added Monaco & Venezuela while Turkey & Jamaica were removed.

3/ US Dept. of State issued a $5M reward?? for Ruja Ignatova, the OneCoin CryptoQueen. Note that in January 2022, the FBI put the same person on the 10 Most Wanted (! the only woman on the list) offering a $250K reward.

4/ PetroChina International America Inc, one of the world's largest oil and gas companies, paid a fine of $14.5M?? for violations of U.S. export restrictions in its trade relations with Mexico.

5/ An Italian animation company agreed to pay OFAC $538K for violation of US sanctions on North Korea??

6/ FinCEN blacklisted Iraq's Al-Huda Bank under Section 311 of the USA PATRIOT Act?? as a foreign financial institution of primary money laundering concern.

7/ Two men who manipulated the price of a cryptocurrency by using a “bot” to flood the market with fake and fraudulent orders were sentenced in US for manipulating the price of security and scheming to defraud investors??. For the first time, a jury in a federal criminal trial found that a cryptocurrency was a security (!) and that manipulating cryptocurrency prices was securities fraud.

8/ Austrian regulator fined Raiffeisen Bank International with a record fine of over €2M for lapses in ML controls??

9/ EU prosecutors launched bombshell corruption?? probe into former European Investment Bank chief

10/ Russian oligarch Pumpyansky and his wife won the appeal against EU sanctions??

11/ Bank of Italy reported potentially illegal bank transfers?? last year from Italian accounts to Russia, channelled through other countries in order to avoid Western sanctions

12/ China expelled two former defense ministers from the ruling Communist Party over alleged corruption??

13/ A Panamanian court has acquitted all 28 people charged with money laundering in connection with the Panama Papers scandal?? , concluding a trial that began in April.