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🎯 Iran’s $6 Billion Hostage Business. Rescuing American hostages is a high priority and a terrible dilemma for the government. We want our citizens back, but paying cash for their release rewards rogue regimes and encourages further lawless behavior. WSJ
Top Stories
💥 Turkish Crypto Boss Sentenced to Over 11,000 Years in Prison. Faruk Fatih Ozer, who ran crypto exchange Thodex until it imploded in 2021, was sentenced to 11,196 years in prison by a Turkish court for crimes including fraud. Bloomberg
💥 Chinese operatives using AI generated images to spread disinformation among US voters. In the last nine months, the operatives have posted striking AI-made images depicting the Statute of Liberty and BLM movement on social media, in a campaign focusing on “denigrating U.S. political figures and symbols.” CNN
💥 Blastpass: NSO Group iPhone Zero-Click, Zero-Day Exploit Captured in the Wild. Apple released software updates on Thursday to address two zero-day vulnerabilities that researchers said were used to deliver NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware to victims. Citizen Lab
💥 $5 billion in Russian assets found in U.S. by global task force. The $5 billion of immobilized assets is insufficient to cover the Biden administration's latest $24 billion supplemental Ukraine funding request. Axios
💥 Putin and Kim’s Meeting Shows the Limits of US Sanctions. Washington’s inability to force Pyongyang to change geopolitical course through sanctions highlights the complicated nature of US economic statecraft. Bloomberg
💥 Fugitive drug lord, one of the most wanted narcos in Spain, is captured in Colombia after three years on the run. Spanish national Raúl Moreno was arrested in a joint operation between the National Police and Interpol as he was about to receive a breakfast delivery at residence in the capital city of Bogotá. Daily Mail
💥 U.S., U.K. accuse 11 Russians of running cybercrime ring that attacked hospitals around the world. In concurrent statements announcing sanctions against the men, the U.S. Treasury Department and the U.K. government made the rare public claim that the alleged cybercriminals have explicit ties to Russian intelligence. NBC News
💥 Former FTX exec Salame to forfeit $1.5 billion, pleads guilty to two criminal counts. Salame admitted that from fall 2021 to November 2022 he steered tens of millions of dollars of political contributions to both Democrats and Republicans in his own name when in actuality the money came from Alameda Research. CNBC
💥 Taliban Sell Afghanistan's Mines Despite Sanctions. From oil to copper, gold and lithium, the Islamist leadership, unrecognized by any nation as Afghanistan's legitimate government, has inked multibillion-dollar mining deals with Chinese and other foreign companies. VOA
💥 The ‘Fake’ Trump Legal Fund Playing Both Sides and Duping Everyone. A so-called “Patriot Legal Defense Fund” isn’t actually associated with Donald Trump—and it can’t make it up its mind if it’s pro-Trump or anti-Trump. Daily Beast
💥 Business is booming for human traffickers because they know they’ll get away with it. Convictions against people-trafficking are so low that in the whole of the Americas, from Canada and the US to Argentina and Brazil, just 256 convictions were recorded last year. Guardian
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