Detained in Venezuela amid confusing circumstances, Alex Saab (Barranquilla, 54 years old) is being faced with the possibility of extradition to the United States, where he was previously imprisoned on charges of money laundering.
In April 2024, the value of all the dollar bills in circulation reached an all-time high of $2.345tn, and may well be even more than that by now. The total value of dollars in the world has doubled every decade since the 1970s. Similarly, there are 1.552tn euro notes in circulation, while most other currencies the British pound, the Japanese yen, the Swiss franc and so on are all at something like their highest levels in history.
The CapitalWatch report, titled "The Southeast Asian Money Laundering Syndicate's NASDAQ 'Laundromat'," focuses on AppLovin's capital structure and operations. It accuses primary shareholder Hao Tang and his network of injecting illegal funds into the company while evading anti-money laundering rules. The document links these funds to about 6.67 billion yuan in illegal proceeds from China's Tuandaiwang platform, a collapsed peer-to-peer lending site, and revenues from Southeast Asian scams like "pig-butchering" crypto frauds.
When President Donald Trump announced the audacious capture of Nicolas Maduro to face drug trafficking charges in the U.S., he portrayed the strongman's vice president and longtime aide as America's preferred partner to stabilize Venezuela amid a scourge of drugs, corruption and economic mayhem. Left unspoken was the cloud of suspicion that long surrounded Delcy Rodriguez before she became acting president of the beleaguered nation earlier this month.
An NHS manager who siphoned off more than 120,000 from his trust, primarily to fuel a gambling addiction, has been handed a prison sentence. Alec Gandy, a senior operational manager at Dudley Integrated Health and Care NHS Trust, orchestrated a scheme involving fake temporary worker accounts, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) revealed. Gandy created fictitious roles for his friend, Matthew Lane, as a physician's assistant, and his ex-wife, Kaylee Wright, as a paramedic. He then authorised invoices totalling over 123,000 to be paid into these accounts.
A Toronto court is hearing from one of the people who signed on to supervise a man accused of laundering funds for an international drug ring if he is released on bail. The woman, whose identity is covered by a publication ban, is taking the stand as Rolan Sokolovski's bail hearing enters its second day. Sokolovski is one of several Canadians arrested for extradition to the United States last fall as part of an investigation into Ryan Wedding,
According to court documents, Ryan Goldberg, 40, of Georgia, Kevin Martin, 36, of Texas, and a third, unnamed co-conspirator successfully deployed the ransomware known as ALPHV (BlackCat) between April 2023 and December 2023 against multiple victims located throughout the United States. The three men agreed to pay the ALPHV BlackCat administrators a 20% share of any ransoms received in exchange for access to the ransomware and ALPHV BlackCat's extortion platform.
German prosecutors say they will drop an investigation of Russian oligarch Alisher Usmanov, a close ally of President Vladimir Putin, over possible breaches of sanctions and money laundering rules after he agreed to pay a 10 million euro (about $11.8 million) fine. The Uzbekistan-born Russian billionaire and metals magnate, who was reelected as the president of the International Fencing Federation last year, has been facing European Union sanctions imposed after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
CASE UPDATE: MINNESOTA FRAUD SCHEME The FBI is aware of recent social media reports in Minnesota. However, even before the public conversation escalated online, the FBI had surged personnel and investigative resources to Minnesota to dismantle large-scale fraud schemes exploiting federal programs. Fraud that steals from taxpayers and robs vulnerable children will remain a top FBI priority in Minnesota and nationwide.
An elder law attorney from Florida has been sentenced to 25 years in prison for stealing nearly $2 million from his clients' accounts. Polk County, Florida, Judge Cassandra Denmark also sentenced Jason Penrod, the founder of the now-closed Family Elder Law in Florida to 15 years of probation following his prison sentence, according to USA Today. Penrod pleaded guilty to two counts of grand theft and 19 counts of money laundering on Dec. 12, USA Today also reports.
Police are investigating suspected fraud and money laundering by a former member of staff at Tower Hamlets Council, according to a report. Documents presented to the council's audit committee say the allegations involve inappropriate procurement and approval of services and payments involving undeclared conflicts of interest. The council says the alleged crimes date back to 2018 and that a police investigation is ongoing. The town hall launched an internal investigation called Operation NextWage after police alerted it to the potential crimes.
Spanish prosecutors are probing evidence that the company made an inadequate use of public funds approved by the Spanish government on March 9, 2021, and that the bailout money was instead used to pay off previously existing loans. Plus Ultra appears as a signatory and beneficiary of loan agreements with three companies belonging to the criminal organization, and involved in sales of gold, states the documentation seen by EL PAIS.
The Santa Clara County District Attorney's Office has charged members of a San Jose family with running a network of brothels in Santa Clara County that were trafficking dozens of women and bringing in about a million dollars per year. Multiple co-defendants are facing felonies involving their operation of a network of at least 10 commercial sex brothels in Gilroy, Morgan Hill, San Jose, Cupertino and Mountain View, according to an announcement today by the District Attorney's Office.
Jurors can expect to hear a rollicking Hollywood tale featuring a bidding war (a half-dozen streamers, including Amazon, had vied for the project's rights) and at least one celebrity (Keanu Reeves was an early investor, according to the New York Times.) They'll likely see raw footage from Rinsch's dystopian, AI-themed thriller, "White Horse," turning a federal courtroom in Manhattan into the project's first public screening venue. And they'll hear extensive details of Rinsch's spending - with what prosecutors contend was Netflix's money - on cars, watches, clothing, luxury rentals, and those two very pricey premium mattresses.
Since 2016, Europol said, Cryptomixer facilitated the laundering of 1.3 billion euros ($1.5 billion) in bitcoin. Hackers and other criminals use laundering services such as Cryptomixer to obfuscate and hide the provenance of their cryptocurrency. By design, cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum are built on public blockchains that allow law enforcement, as well as blockchain intelligence firms such as Chainalysis and Elliptic, to follow the money over time.
Switzerland's federal prosecutor has filed charges against the failed bank Credit Suisse and its new owner, UBS, over the long-running tuna bonds loan scandal that crashed Mozambique's economy nearly a decade ago. The Swiss attorney general said on Monday that it had brought money-laundering charges against an unnamed employee of Credit Suisse, but was also taking action against the lender and its rival-turned-owner UBS.
But this is not the first time Rocha has been the subject of the authorities' interest. The businessman, with a lavish track record in the corporate world and in the import and export of hydrocarbons in Mexico, is wanted for his involvement in a fuel, weapons, and drug smuggling ring originating in Guatemala that connects him to the Jalisco New Generation Cartel and the Mexico City-based cartel La Union Tepito.
Prosecutors named the defendants as Samy Fadi Khouadja, 45, of France and the United Arab Emirates; Eamma Safi, 38, of the United Arab Emirates and Germany; Zhi Ge, 34, of Singapore; Christophe Dong, 41, of France; Julien Liu, 35, of France and Hong Kong; Patrick Chou, 38, of France and Hong Kong; Cheuk Yue Lee, 43, of Hong Kong; and Dev Ananth Durai, 39, of Singapore.
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