Corruption Ledger

HELSINKI: Finland will close its entire border with Russia to travellers for the next two weeks in a bid to halt the unusually large flow of asylum seekers to the Nordic nation, which the government and its allies say is an orchestrated move by Moscow. Finland last week shut all but one of its border posts to travellers from Russia, keeping open only the northernmost crossing located in the Arctic.But this too would now close, the government said on Tuesday….

  As China’s embattled shadow banking giant Zhongzhi Enterprise Group faces a criminal probe, lawyers and analysts are assessing the damage to investors. One estimate puts that at about US$56 billion (S$74.9 billion). More than three quarters of investor cash would be lost, with just 100 billion yuan (S$18.7 billion) being recovered from debt of as much as 460 billion yuan, according to one scenario outlined by Mr Ying Yue, a lawyer at Leaqual Law Firm in Shanghai. He expects…

RIYADH: Saudi Arabia‘s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on Tuesday urged all nations to cease weapon exports to Israel, according to Al Arabiya Post. Saudi Arabia’s Crown Price made this request during an extraordinary BRICS Joint Meeting, which was being held virtually to address the Israel-Hamas conflict. South Africa is hosting the BRICS groups of nations to convene the virtual BRICS Extraordinary Joint Meeting. Saudi Arabia further demanded the start of a serious and comprehensive peace process to establish a…

The Idaho National Laboratory (INL) confirms they suffered a cyberattack after ‘SiegedSec’ hacktivists leaked stolen human resources data online. INL is a nuclear research center run by the U.S. Department of Energy that employs 5,700 specialists in atomic energy, integrated energy, and national security. The INL complex extends over an 890-square-mile (2,310 km2) area, encompassing 50 experimental nuclear reactors, including the first ones in history to produce usable amounts of electricity and the first power plant designed for nuclear submarines….

Beijing has defended its prosecution of two Canadians for espionage, after The Globe and Mail reported that Michael Spavor blames intelligence work done by Michael Kovrig for their nearly three-year-long detention. Mr. Spavor is seeking a multimillion-dollar settlement from Ottawa, two sources told The Globe, alleging he was arrested in China in late 2018 because he unwittingly provided intelligence on North Korea to Mr. Kovrig, which was later shared with Canada and allied spy services. In a statement Sunday, China’s…

The Canadian government says two of its contractors have been hacked, exposing sensitive information belonging to an undisclosed number of government employees.  These breaches occurred last month and impacted Brookfield Global Relocation Services (BGRS) and SIRVA Worldwide Relocation & Moving Services, both providers of relocation services to Canadian government employees.  Government-related information stored on compromised BGRS and SIRVA Canada systems dates back to 1999, and it belongs to a broad spectrum of affected individuals, including members of the Royal Canadian Mounted…

With Russian tanks and troops descending on Ukraine in early 2022, Cyprus became a hotbed of financial activity. The island country has long been known as an offshore transit point for the fortunes of Russian billionaires, and as sanctions loomed over many of them last year, Cyprus financial services firms fielded a series of urgent demands to transfer funds and shareholdings, newly revealed records show. In one case, documents show that two Russian billionaires, Alexander Abramov and Alexander Frolov, needed…

Italy has just delivered a devastating blow to the controversial agenda of the World Economic Forum (WEF) and billionaire magnate Bill Gates for global food control, with the historic approval of a ban on the production and sale of cultivated meat. The Chamber of Deputies voted 159 in favor, 53 against, and 34 abstentions in support of the bill presented by Minister of Agriculture Francesco Lollobrigida. The legislation […] prohibits the production and market introduction of foods and feeds derived from cellular…

U.S. Attorney’s Office Eastern District of California  FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Thursday, November 16, 2023 FRESNO, Calif. — A federal grand jury returned a three-count indictment today against Jia Bei Zhu, aka Jesse Zhu, Qiang He, and David He, 62, a citizen of China who formerly resided in Clovis, charging him with distributing adulterated and misbranded medical devices in violation of the federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act and for making false statements to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), U.S….

November 16, 2023 WASHINGTON — Today, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) designated eight individuals and six entities pursuant to Western Balkans-related Executive Order (E.O.) 14033 and Russia-related E.O. 14024. In a coordinated action, the U.S. Department of State also designated two individuals and 12 entities pursuant to E.O. 14024. “Russia has continued to use its influence in the Western Balkans to stymie the region’s integration into international institutions and organizations, as well as…

PARIS: France has issued an international arrest warrant for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, accused of complicity in crimes against humanity over chemical attacks in 2013, a judicial source and plaintiffs in the case said Wednesday. The judicial source told AFP Assad was also suspected of complicity in war crimes for the attacks, blamed by the opposition on the regime, that killed more than 1,400 people near Damascus in August 2013. International warrants were also issued for the arrests of Assad’s…

The “Israel on Campus Coalition” offered college students $250 “microgrants” to attend the “March for Israel” event in Washington, DC on Tuesday. “The ‘Israel on Campus Coalition’ is funded by ‘pro-Israel’ billionaires such as Bernie Marcus, founder of Home Depot, and Jan Koum, founder of WhatsApp,” Michael Tracey reported. A group called “Israel on Campus Coalition” gave “microgrants” for people to attend yesterday’s “March for Israel” event in DC. The “Israel on Campus Coalition” is funded by “pro-Israel” billionaires such as…

A senior Ukrainian military officer with deep ties to the country’s intelligence services played a central role in the bombing of the Nord Stream natural gas pipelines last year, according to officials in Ukraine and elsewhere in Europe, as well as other people knowledgeable about the details of the covert operation. The officer’s role provides the most direct evidence to date tying Ukraine’s military and security leadership to a controversial act of sabotage that has spawned multiple criminal investigations and…

Boeing, a prominent aerospace manufacturer and defense contractor, found itself targeted by the Lockbit ransomware group at the end of October. This cybercriminal organization claimed responsibility for infiltrating Boeing’s systems and asserted that it had obtained a substantial amount of sensitive data. The group threatened to disclose this information unless Boeing engaged with them before the initial deadline, initially set for November 2, 2023, at 13:25:39 UTC but later extended to November 10, 2023. In early November 2023, Boeing officially…

Portugal’s central bank governor Mário Centeno is facing an ethics review by an independent watchdog after he was proposed as the next prime minister by Socialist premier António Costa, who quit last week over a corruption scandal. Costa’s proposal has triggered a public spat between Centeno and Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, the president who has the power to appoint prime ministers. Costa, who resigned over allegations of corruption among public officials, had urged Rebelo de Sousa to appoint Centeno as…

Backgrounder. Imran Khan is a former Pakistani cricket player, politician, philanthropist, and prime minister of Pakistan (2018–22). He became a national hero by leading Pakistan’s national team to a Cricket World Cup victory in 1992 and later entered politics as a critic of government corruption in Pakistan. Khan’s calls for investigations into government corruption, along with supporting evidence released in the Panama Papers, led to the resignation of Nawaz Sharif, Pakistani businessman and politician who served as prime minister in…