Tag: Region South America

SAO PAULO – A law passed by legislators in Brazil’s largest farm state Mato Grosso that changes the classification of endangered biomes inside state borders will likely weaken environmental protections there, according to climate activists. Under the new law, areas currently located in the Amazon biome could be converted into Cerrado areas based on the height of trees. That means…

The latest disintegration of a SpaceX test flight was a spectacular sight, as broken-up rocket parts streaked like jellyfish tendrils across the Caribbean sky Thursday evening. But some experts say focusing on that dazzling light show, as many people and media outlets did, highlights a lack of understanding of the environmental aftermath of these spacecraft failures. Moriba Jah, professor of aerospace engineering…

A grand jury in Seattle returned an indictment today charging a Washington man and his company with conspiracy and for violating the Lacey Act by transporting birds that had been hunted in violation of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act (MBTA). The indictment alleges that, from August 2022 to January 2023, Branden Trager, 46, of Brush Prairie, Washington, and his guiding…

LONDON – The multilateral Climate Investment Funds (CIF) has issued a $500 million debut bond as part of a plan to diversify its funding sources and attract private sector investors to finance low carbon technologies in emerging markets, its CEO said on Tuesday. The success of the bond, six times oversubscribed, underscores the growing importance of market-friendly issuances as nations…

BUENOS AIRES – Argentina’s government said on Thursday it had filed a complaint with the International Criminal Court against Venezuela for detaining a member of its gendarmerie, a branch of Argentina’s security forces, calling it a “forced disappearance.” Tensions between the two South American countries have risen since Javier Milei, a far-right libertarian, assumed Argentina’s presidency in late 2023. These…

LOS ANGELES – Leonard Francis, the Malaysian military contractor known as “Fat Leonard”, was sentenced to 15 years in prison on Nov 5 for his role in the US Navy’s worst-ever corruption scandal. Francis, 60, was also ordered to pay US$20 million (S$26.3 million) in restitution to the US Navy by a federal judge in San Diego and to forfeit…

LIMA – Peruvian former President Alejandro Toledo was convicted of taking bribes from Brazilian construction giant Odebrecht and sentenced to 20 years and six months in prison on Monday. The verdict marks Peru’s first high-profile conviction related to Brazil’s continent-spanning Lava Jato corruption scandal. Toledo, a 78-year-old economist who holds a doctorate from Stanford University, governed the Andean nation between…

A federal grand jury in the District of Columbia returned an indictment yesterday charging a Maryland man with major fraud against the United States and making false statements to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for his alleged participation in a scheme to deceive the SEC into thinking his company’s data center was certified at the highest rating level…

View All Environmental Crimes Bulletins In This Issue: Cases by District/Circuit District/Circuit Case Name Statute(s) 8th Circuit Court of Appeals United States v. Harvey Allen Hugs BGEPA 11th Circuit Court of Appeals United States v. John R. Moore, Jr., et al. Maritime Jurisdiction Theft Southern District of California United States v. Michael Hart Greenhouse Gas Imports/ Conspiracy, American Innovation and…

The former comptroller general of Ecuador was sentenced today to 10 years in prison for his role in a multimillion-dollar international bribery and money laundering scheme in which he received over $10 million in bribes and laundered those bribes payments in South Florida. According to court documents and evidence presented at trial, between 2010 to 2015, Carlos Ramon Polit Faggioni, 73,…

The founder and chief executive officer of the messaging service Telegram was detained at a Paris airport on an arrest warrant alleging his platform has been used for money laundering, drug trafficking and other offences, French media reported Sunday. Pavel Durov, a dual citizen of France and Russia, was arrested at Paris-Le Bourget Airport on Saturday evening after landing in…

SINGAPORE – Offshore and marine specialist Seatrium has secured $11 billion worth of contracts to build two new floating production storage and offloading vessels (FPSOs) for Brazil’s national oil company, Petrobras. Called P-84 and P-85, the FPSOs will be deployed in the Atapu and Sepia fields in the Santos Basin, offshore of the Brazilian city Rio de Janeiro, Seatrium announced…

Columbia University retracted ultimatum for pro-Palestinian demonstrators amidst US tensions. Police used force at universities. Debates on free speech intensified. Student Skyler Sieradsky expressed fear as a Jew in America due to messages of hate and violence. Authorities confirmed that police forces conducted widespread arrests, employing chemical irritants and tasers to disperse protests at several universities. Reports emerged of clashes…

Venezuela’s former oil minister Tareck El Aissami, once a powerful confidante of authoritarian president Nicolás Maduro, has been arrested on allegations of corruption, the socialist government announced on Tuesday. Former finance minister Simón Zerpa and Sarmark López, a businessman and associate of El Aissami, were also arrested as part of the probe into alleged corruption at state oil major Petróleos…

  The trial of 27 people opened Monday in Panama from charges stemming from the Panama Papers, a cache of millions of financial documents that exposed money laundering and worldwide tax evasion networks. Among those on trial are the owners of the Mossack-Fonseca law firm, the company that was central to the 2016 massive document leak, which detailed how the…