Happy Monday!  It’s March 11, and we’re tracking top stories to start the week: Mexican cartels embrace terrifying new weapon - land mines, U.S. mulls blacklisting China's CXMT to curb chips advance, Republican AGs demand Wells Fargo answer for de-banking legal gun dealers, desperate battle to get American ballerina out of Russia, and much more...

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🎯 Soldiers and civilians are dying as Mexican cartels embrace a terrifying new weapon: Land mines. The ground where a soldier stood seconds earlier is a gaping hole, the aftermath of an IED planted by a warring drug cartel. LAT

Top Stories

🌎 U.S. Mulls Blacklisting CXMT to Curb China’s Chip Advance. The Commerce Department’s BIS is considering adding ChangXin to its Entity List, which restricts companies’ access to U.S. technology. Bloomberg

🌎 Republican AGs demand Wells Fargo answer for abruptly closing gun dealer's account, other woke policies. The coalition of top state legal officers is eyeing Wells Fargo's practices regarding debanking – the closure of accounts the bank views as risky. Fox

🌎 Treason charges after $50 for Ukraine: desperate battle to free LA ballerina held in Russia. Ksenia Karelina faces life in prison over what boyfriend says stems from charity donation – and he’s calling on the U.S. to help. Guardian

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🌎 TikTok Crackdown Shifts Into Overdrive, With Sale or Shutdown on Table. Bobby Kotick, former CEO of Activision, has floated idea of buying TikTok to potential partners. WSJ

🌎 Microsoft admits Russian state hack still not contained. ‘This has tremendous national security implications’. The hackers, known as Cozy Bear, are the same hacking team behind the SolarWinds breach. Fortune

🌎 U.S. Issues Sanctions On Russian, Central African Republic Entities. The Russian and CAR entities sought to benefit financially from illicit natural resource extraction and provided material and financial support to the Wagner Group. RFE

🌎 Rupert Murdoch's new Russian fiancée ties him to a sprawling web of money — with some surprising connections. Elena Zhukova was once married to Russian oligarch Alexander Radkin Zhukov. BI

🌎 How Fraudsters Break Into Social Security Accounts and Steal Benefits. Social Security-related scams, overall, are pervasive — fraudsters pose as employees to try to extract both money and valuable identifying details from people in a variety of schemes. NYT

🌎 Petrobras Team Goes to Venezuela Despite Oil Sanctions Threat. Brazilian state-controlled oil giant sent a team of production specialists to Venezuela at the request of Nicolás Maduro, who’s welcoming oil majors despite US sanctions threats. Bloomberg

📌 Venezuela Arrests Close Ally of Opposition Leader Machado Reuters

🌎 Gangbangers openly sell fake IDs, green cards to migrants on NYC streets as officials warn of danger. Criminals with ties to MS-13 are selling sensitive fake documents as rogue newcomers pour into the Big Apple. NYP

🌎 Paysign investigating consumer information data breach. Financial services firm Paysign is investigating reports of a data breach of consumer information after hackers tried to sell a database containing millions of records. Record

🌎 US Treasury official pushes Lebanon to halt the flow of funding to Hamas. Treasury shared specific concerns about the movement of Hamas funds through Lebanon, Hezbollah funds from Iran into Lebanon and then out into other regional areas. AP

🌎 The Taliban once smashed TVs. Now it fosters YouTubers to promote its image. Videos that are critical of the Taliban have largely disappeared from YouTube over the past two years due to Taliban pressure and self-censorship. WaPo

🚀 More news at Illicit Edge!

IN THE NEWS

Russia

🇷🇺 Russian oligarch went to Moscow in effort to broker complex prisoner exchange that included Navalny CNN

🇷🇺 EU banks in Russia react to US sanctions threat EU Observer

🇷🇺 Russia’s economy once again defies the doomsayers Economist

🇷🇺 'Porous' sanctions haven't stopped Russia's war, but there's still more the West can do to squeeze its economy BI

🇷🇺 Russia Drops to Third in Arms Trade as Exports Plunge Newsweek

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China

🇨🇳 'No CCP in USA!': Inside a Michigan town's unhinged war over a Chinese battery plant BI

🇨🇳 Shanghai Zhenhua denies posing cybersecurity risk to US ports Reuters

🇨🇳 More than 340 in corruption net as China’s top prosecutors double down on tackling financial crime SCMP

🇨🇳 TSMC to Win More Than $5 Billion in Grants for US Chip Plant Bloomberg

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Corruption & Financial Crime

💸 How Trump’s DOJ Derailed an Investigation of a Major Company NYT

💸 DEI killed the CHIPS Act Hill

💸 Gang leader named ‘Barbeque’ is now most powerful man in Haiti — as US evacuates Americans NYP

💸 Stop bailing out South Africa’s corrupt leaders Hill

💸 Brutal Gambino hitman Joey Testa will soon be freed after 35 years behind bars NYP

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Trafficking

🚚 Former Pablo Escobar associate arrested on drugs charges in Colombia Reuters

🚚 House Republicans demand Biden ‘terminate’ flights that have let 320K migrants avoid border NYP

🚚 Former Honduran president found guilty in drug trafficking trial CNN

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Crypto & Cyber

🔐 The Week in Ransomware - Waiting for the BlackCat rebrand Bleepingcomputer

🔐 Top US cybersecurity agency hacked and forced to take some systems offline CNN

🔐 Wyoming Grants DAOs New Legal Structure CoinDesk

🔐 USG calls for insurance companies to make advanced payments following cyberattack disruption CNN

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