Happy Monday!  It’s May 20, and we’re tracking top stories to start your week: Binance gets two enforcement monitors, feds nab Chinese pig butcherers, China sanctions Boeing, $2oM money launderer welcomes Prince Harry in Nigeria, and much more...  

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🎯 Binance Gets Two Compliance Monitors in Settlements With U.S. Authorities. Consultant Forensic Risk Alliance and law firm Sullivan & Cromwell have been selected as outside monitors as part of the crypto exchange’s $4.3B settlements. WSJ 

Top Stories

🌎 Feds nab Chinese money launderers for pig butchering scheme. Zhang and Li directed an intricate money laundering web in which a team of subordinates opened up 74 shell companies. Record

🌎 China sanctions Boeing, two U.S. defense contractors for Taiwan arms sales. The move is the latest in a series of sanctions Beijing has announced in recent years against defense companies for weapons sales to Taiwan. AP

🌎 Prince Harry, Meghan Markle welcomed to Nigeria by fugitive wanted in US for $20M money laundering scam. The charismatic businessman is well-known in Nigeria but is the subject of a US federal indictment filed back in November 2019. NYP

🌎 ICC seeks arrest warrants against Sinwar and Netanyahu. The decision puts Netanyahu in the company of the Russian President Vladimir Putin. CNN

🚩 The UN’s Gaza Statistics Make No Sense Atlantic

🌎 Russian court seizes Deutsche Bank, Commerzbank assets as part of lawsuit. The lawsuits were filed by St Petersburg-based RusChemAlliance, a joint venture 50% owned by Russian gas giant Gazprom. Reuters

🌎 As Putin Girds for Protracted War, a New Russian Elite Emerges: Meet the Princelings. Reshuffle at start of president’s fifth term promoted offspring of his closest associates, ultraloyalists. WSJ

🌎 Is This Suburban New York Charity a Terrorist Front Group? The Westchester Peace Action Committee Foundation is named in a lawsuit alleging anti-Israel groups coordinate with Hamas. Free Beacon

🌎 Senate Inquiry Finds BMW Imported Cars Tied to Forced Labor in China. The report also found that Jaguar Land Rover and VW bought parts from a supplier the U.S. government had singled out for its practices in Xinjiang. NYT

🌎 4 big questions as Bob Menendez’s corruption trial enters its second week. Can prosecutors connect all the many, far-flung dots? CNN

🌎 StanChart’s Korea Troubles Deepen After Exotic Notes Backfire. The British lender is under pressure to compensate thousands of individuals after selling them $900M in complex securities. Bloomberg

IN THE NEWS

Russia

🇷🇺 Virtually Every Sanctioned Russian Oil Tanker Remains Idle and Empty Months After Sanctions Bloomberg

🇷🇺 G7 leaders to discuss €30bn loan for Ukraine using Russian assets Guardian

🇷🇺 UK sanctions watchdog flops in face of Russia’s war Politico

🇷🇺 GOP lawmaker proposes sanctions against Georgian officials over Russian-inspired law Hill

🇷🇺 India's spike in trade with Russia not a 'temporary phenomenon' Reuters

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China

🇨🇳 U.S. Fears Undersea Cables Are Vulnerable to Espionage From Chinese Repair Ships WSJ

🇨🇳 TikTok Parent ByteDance Now Has China’s Most Popular AI Chatbot Bloomberg

🇨🇳 Dozens of China’s state regulators, bankers, finance bosses in corruption net as crackdown stepped up in new year SCMP

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Corruption & Financial Crime

💸 Even a Fraud Conviction Won’t Keep Nikola’s Founder Away From the Company WSJ

💸 Authorities raid Tel Aviv municipality, 13 arrested for corruption, money-laundering JP

💸 South Africa's top court rules ex-president Zuma ineligible to run in general election AFP

💸 Fat Leonard bribery cases fall apart because of prosecution blunders WaPo

💸 Fraud Trial to Begin for Ozy Founder Carlos Watson NYT

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Crypto & Cyber

🔐 San Francisco: trial begins in killing of tech executive that shocked city Guardian

🔐 Genesis Set to Return $3B Customer Assets in Finalized Bankruptcy Liquidation Plan CoinDesk

🔐 OpenAI disbands team devoted to artificial intelligence risks Axios

🔐 How a Chinese police raid on $2B underground bank augurs new crypto clampdown in Asia DL News

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Trafficking

🚚 Federal judge orders ICE to end ‘knock and talk’ arrests of immigrants in Southern California LAT

🚚 Border Patrol agents reveal how easily terrorists and killers get into US despite being screened NYP

🚚 Philippines arrests Australian suspect, reportedly the father of a rugby star, for drugs trafficking AP

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