A Canadian, Bahram Karimi, was charged in a superseding indictment in the Southern District of New York last Thursday, with bank fraud in a US$115 million Iranian sanctions avoidance case with close ties to the Pilatus Bank case. He faces a term of incarceration of up to 30 years, if convicted. Karimi is also an […]
An Iranian foreign national living in the US, Mahin Toussi Mojtahedzadeh, was sentenced to 443 days in jail in the US, for conspiring to unlawfully export gas turbine parts from the US to Iran, using a company in Richmond Hill, Ontario. She is being removed from the US and deported back to Iran. Mojtahedzadeh was […]
In what will be the most significant change to anti-money laundering law in the US since the Bank Secrecy Act, the US is considering two separate bills that, if passed, would require disclosure of the shareholders of private companies – the ILLICIT CASH Act and the Corporate Transparency Act, H.R. 2513. ILLICIT Cash Act The […]
César Emilio Peralta, also known as César the abuser, an OFAC designated drug kingpin from the Dominican Republic, was arrested in a rented condo in a hotel in the upscale Bocagrande District of Cartagena de Indias, Colombia. Police say he was getting ready to flee to Panama. Peralta is wanted on charges of international narcotics […]
Unsealed criminal complaint The US Attorney for the SDNY, together with the FBI yesterday announced the arrest of Virgil Griffith, a cryptocurrency advisor, in connection with technical services he allegedly provided to educate the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (“North Korea”) on sanctions avoidance and money laundering. Griffith was the subject of a criminal complaint […]
Russian on OFAC list launches a coin The Kharon Brief has an interesting article here about Aleksei Muratov (Алексей Муратов), also spelled Aleksey Muratov, a Russian foreign national who is on the US OFAC sanctions list here, who founded, launched and owns an initial coin offering called PRIZM. Donetsk People’s Republic Muratov is the Central […]
Marisol Franco, the common law spouse of César Peralta, known as “César the Abuser” was arrested in the Dominican Republic yesterday in connection with charges against Peralta of alleged money laundering, drug trafficking and human trafficking of young women from Venezuela and Colombia. Peralta was designated as a drug kingpin in the US last week […]
Canada now has its first official drug kingpin and its a company in Ontario. The US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (“OFAC”) yesterday designated a Canadian company as part of a significant foreign money laundering organization and drug trafficking organization. The Kingpin Act is used for the most serious of designations […]
The US government unsealed a federal forfeiture complaint this week, seeking in rem forfeiture of a cargo ship that was used for sanctions avoidance to benefit North Korea which used US correspondent banks to engage in sanctions avoidance. The case has no tie to the US except for the use of correspondent banks and is […]
The Bulgarian police have seized a transport truck from Iran attempting to cross the Bulgarian – Turkey border with 288 kilos of pure heroin, with a street value of $15 million at the low end. The heroin was dry-walled, meaning each brick of heroin was covered individually with drywalling material. According to the US 2019 […]