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🎯 Ukraine freezes assets of three Russian tycoons worth $464M. The Ukrainian Security Service said assets owned by Mikhail Fridman, Pyotr Aven and Andrey Kosogov had been frozen. Reuters
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💥 Italian police take down Chinese shadow network laundering mafia cash. Italian police arrested 33 people in a crackdown on a network of Chinese money brokers who laundered $52.5M from drug trafficking groups. Reuters
💥 Sam Bankman-Fried, Other FTX Execs Committed Financial Crimes. Gary Wang, the former chief technology officer and co-founder of FTX, told a jury that he, Bankman-Fried and fellow former executives Caroline Ellison and Nishad Singh committed multiple forms of fraud. CoinDesk
💥 Kyrie Irving Is Now an Exec at Chinese Firm Tied to Human Rights Abuses. The NBA star and self-proclaimed “freedom” fighter signed up to be the chief creative officer of ANTA, a sneaker brand linked to “the systematic use of forced labor” Rolling Stone
💥 Blacklisted Chinese Chip Maker Does a Thriving Business With U.S. Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. last year grabbed a record $1.5 billion in revenue — a fifth of its overall sales — from American semiconductor-design companies that hire SMIC to make their chips. WSJ
💥 US curbs on chip tools to China nearly finalized. A regulation titled, "Export controls to Semiconductor Manufacturing Items, Entity List Modifications," was posted on the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) website on Wednesday. Reuters
💥 Southeast Asian Casinos Emerge as Major Enablers of Global Cybercrime. A growing number of casinos in Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar are engaging in large-scale money laundering, facilitating cyberfraud that is costing victims in America and abroad billions. ProPublica
💥 Russia’s ‘Shadow Fleet’ Is Sailing Circles Around Western Sanctions. Russia is successfully evading the Western effort to impose a price cap of $60 a barrel on a large share of its oil sales. National Interest
💥 Cyberattack cost MGM Resorts $100 million. The company said it deliberately shut down a number of services “to mitigate risk to customer information" after the hack last month. NBC News
💥 Gold Bars Might Not Be Enough to Convict Bob Menendez. Despite the DOJ’s flashy press conference featuring gratuitous bling and accusations of rank corruption, nailing the New Jersey senator on corruption charges won’t be easy. Daily Beast
💥 Venezuela issues arrest warrant for opposition leader Guaido. Living in exile in the United States, Guaido was accused of treason, usurpation of functions, money laundering and association with a view to committing a crime. AFP