Tag: Region Asias

A complaint was unsealed this morning in federal court in Brooklyn charging Anatoly Legkodymov, a Russian national and senior executive of Bitzlato Ltd. (Bitzlato), a Hong Kong-registered cryptocurrency exchange, with conducting a money transmitting business that transported and transmitted illicit funds and that failed to meet U.S. regulatory safeguards, including anti-money laundering requirements. Legkodymov was arrested last night in Miami and is scheduled to be arraigned this afternoon in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida. French…

Britain’s government stood accused Wednesday of actively undermining talks with union leaders in a bid to encourage strike action and depress workers’ wages across the economy. The government was hoping for a public backlash, to justify newly introduced legislation that would force unions to provide a “minimum service” in public sectors, railway union leaders said. The allegation came as ambulance drivers and paramedics staged another walkout, prompting warnings of serious risk to the public — part of a wave of…

Ukrainian oligarch Konstantin Zhevago, accused of embezzlement and money laundering, was arrested at an elite French ski resort. Zhevago was arrested by French law enforcement at the request of the Ukrainian State Bureau of Investigation, the agency said Wednesday in a statement. French and Ukrainian law enforcement had been cooperating on the case for months before the oligarch’s arrest. The former head of Ukraine’s “Finances and Credit” group, Zhevago is accused of “organizing a mechanism for the embezzlement” of $113…

An internal investigation by parent company ByteDance confirms that employees obtained personal data from reporters who were probing Beijing’s influence on the app’s activities ByteDance, the Chinese technology giant that owns TikTok, admitted Thursday that several employees of the social network spied on journalists from Forbes magazine who were investigating the link between the company’s US branch and China. The information first came to light in October but was confirmed on December 23 by Forbes, which had access to an…

German authorities said on Thursday they had arrested an employee of its foreign intelligence service (BND) on suspicion of sharing state secrets with Russia this year and thereby committing treason. Police arrested the suspect, a German citizen identified as Carsten L, on Wednesday in Berlin, the federal prosecutors office said. It said police also raided his flat and workplace as well as those of another person. “The accused is suspected of state treason,” federal prosecutors said in a statement. “In…

The Kremlin on Thursday accused Kyiv and Washington of turning a deaf ear to its concerns and charged the United States was using Ukraine as a battleground to weaken Russia. It came as President Vladimir Putin insisted Russia was aiming for a speedy end to the fighting. “Our goal is… to end this conflict. We are striving for this”, he told reporters. “We will seek to make sure that it all ends, and the sooner, the better. “All conflicts end,…

Turkey on Tuesday lashed out at Sweden’s refusal to extradite a top reporter that Ankara has demanded in exchange for its ratification of Stockholm’s NATO membership bid. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan wants Sweden to return dozens of people that he suspects either of involvement in a failed 2016 coup or of membership of a banned Kurdish militia that Washington and the European Union designate as “terrorists”. But the now-closed Today’s Zaman newspaper’s editor-in-chief Bulent Kenes was the only person Erdogan…

North Korea said Monday it fired a test satellite in an important final-stage test for the development of its first spy satellite, a key military capability coveted by its leader Kim Jong Un along with other high-tech weapons systems. The North’s official Korean Central News Agency also released low-resolution, black-and-white photos showing a space view of the South Korean capital and Incheon, a city just west of Seoul, in an apparent attempt to show the North is pushing to acquire…

Danske Bank A/S (Danske Bank), a global financial institution headquartered in Denmark, pleaded guilty today and agreed to forfeit $2 billion to resolve the United States’ investigation into Danske Bank’s fraud on U.S. banks. According to court documents, Danske Bank defrauded U.S. banks regarding Danske Bank Estonia’s customers and anti-money laundering controls to facilitate access to the U.S. financial system for Danske Bank Estonia’s high-risk customers, who resided outside of Estonia – including in Russia. The Justice Department will credit…

Publicly filed court documents, including a 16-count indictment unsealed today in Brooklyn, charge five Russian nationals – including a suspected Federal Security Service (FSB) officer – and two U.S. nationals with conspiracy and other charges related to a global procurement and money laundering scheme on behalf of the Russian government in which the defendants allegedly conspired to obtain military-grade and dual-use technologies from U.S. companies for Russia’s defense sector, and to smuggle sniper rifle ammunition, in violation of new U.S….

The investigation and enforcement of potential sanctions violations by crypto exchanges is an area of focus in the US at present.  The US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control’s (OFAC) recent settlement with Kraken, a global virtual currency exchange, is the most recent OFAC case demonstrating the risks for virtual currency platforms that process transactions without comprehensive sanctions controls.  Kraken agreed to pay USD 362,158.70 to settle its potential civil liability for alleged breaches of the Iranian…

States must apply effective arms-control measures to prevent the diversion of weapons supplied to Ukraine, a senior United Nations official told the Security Council today, as some Council members defended their decision to continue providing military support to Kyiv while others detailed the danger of doing so. Izumi Nakamitsu, High Representative for Disarmament Affairs, said that the transfer of materiel to Ukraine by several States since the Russian Federation’s invasion on 24 February is a matter of public record.  Information from…

A seven-count indictment was unsealed today in federal court in Brooklyn charging Andrii Derkach, 55, of Ukraine, with conspiracy to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Acts (IEEPA), bank fraud conspiracy, money laundering conspiracy, and four counts of money laundering in connection with the purchase and maintenance of two condominiums in Beverly Hills, California. Derkach allegedly concealed his interest in the transactions and violated sanctions imposed in 2020. Derkach remains at large. The charges and forfeiture action announced today include…

Prosecutors on Wednesday moved to confiscate $5.4 million from a U.S. bank account belonging to Russian businessman Konstantin Malofeyev, who Washington has accused of financing separatists in eastern Ukraine and Crimea and imposed sanctions on him. (Reuters) Konstantin Malofeyev is the founder of Tsargrad TV, and has been reported in western media to be a regular “consultant” to the Kremlin. He is the “Orthodox oligarch” behind Tsargrad TV, a channel he founded “with the help of the Fox News ex-director…

Haaretz Daily Newspaper reports: Documents reveal that a corporation implicated in corruption, served as a middleman between Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), Elbit (publicly traded co), Israel Shipyards (publicly traded co) and Myanmar’s brutal junta, despite international sanctions over the Rohingya genocide. Company Company Relation Location Industry Description Israel Aerospace Industries Ltd. (IAI) Parent Israel Aircraft Engines Elta Systems Ltd Subsidiary of Parent Israel Electronic Navigation/Tracking Systems Iai Asia Pte. Ltd. Subsidiary of Parent Singapore Wholesalers Iai North America Inc. Principal…