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Hello!  It’s January 31, and we’re tracking today's top stories: New York sues Citibank for poor fraud prevention, complex anti-drug trafficking operation nets 20 arrests, Russian metal sanctions cause industry friction, sanctioned oligarch Potanin saves big in divorce ruling, and much more...

What does the future of financial crimes compliance look like...? 
Find out here.

Featured Story

🎯 New York sues Citibank for failure to reimburse fraud victims. The lawsuit argues that NY customers lost millions of dollars to scammers and hackers because of Citi’s weak anti-fraud measures. CNBC 

Top Stories

🌎 Statewide drug trafficking operation nets 20 arrests. An illicit drug pipeline ran from Mexico to Canada in which hundreds of pounds of cocaine were distributed throughout the U.S. CBS

🌎 Metals Sanctions Are Dividing the Biggest Traders and Banks. The latest UK sanctions on Russia are creating new fault lines across the global metals world. Bloomberg

🌎 Russia’s Richest Man Potanin Pushes On With $9B Divorce Fight. UK’s Supreme Court ruled in favor of the sanctioned billionaire in a judgment that may bring tougher scrutiny to "divorce tourism". Bloomberg

🚀 U.S. Treasury Sanctions Update: Burma, Sudan, and Iran IRGC

🌎 Venezuela to Stop Taking US Deportees If Sanctions Renewed. Migrant deportation flights “would be immediately revoked” if the US takes “the wrong step of intensifying economic aggression against Venezuela”. Bloomberg

🌎 US Could Jail Foreign Officials Under New Bribery Law. Anticorruption activists have high hopes for a new U.S. law that allows Washington to prosecute foreign officials who receive bribes. AFP

🌎 Notorious ransomware gang claims it pulled ‘classified and top-secret documents’ from U.S. intelligence agencies. In a post to the dark web on Tuesday, ALPHV claimed that it had successfully pilfered 300GB of data from the Technica Corporation. Daily Dot

📕 Genuine DeFi as Critical Infrastructure: A Conceptual Framework for Combating Illicit Finance Activity in Decentralized Finance Report

🌎 Abolish the UN’s Palestinian Refugee Agency. UNRWA may be the only agency in the UN system whose central purpose is to perpetuate conflict. NYT

🚩 Canada to send $30M in aid for Gaza after pausing UNRWA funds Hill

🌎 Oil Traders Won Ecuador Deals With $70,000 Watch and Bags of Cash. Those are just some of the bribes paid to win oil trading business in Ecuador. Bloomberg

🌎 Justice Department investigating Rep. Cori Bush campaign's use of security funds. The Missouri Democrat confirmed the investigation, saying her campaign is "fully cooperating." NBC

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IN THE NEWS

China

🇨🇳 U.S. House Testimony: Principles and Policy Options for Designing Better Investment Barriers Emily Kilcrease

🇨🇳 China Vows to Cut Illicit Flows as Singapore Remittances Get Stuck Bloomberg

🇨🇳 Chinese hackers are targeting US infrastructure, FBI chief to testify Reuters

🇨🇳 What is Volt Typhoon, the China-backed hacking group? Reuters

Russia

🇷🇺 Putin's war economy handed huge upgrade in blow to Western sanctions Telegraph

🇷🇺 Russia Hires Its Own Africa Army to Succeed Wagner’s Mercenaries Bloomberg

🇷🇺 U.K. Lawmakers Warn Russia Skirting Oil Sanctions With 'Shadow' Tankers AFP

🇷🇺 Russian Election Authority Releases Putin's Financial Disclosure Moscow Times

Corruption & Financial Crime

💸 Trump Political Action Committees Spent Some $50M on Legal Fees Messenger

💸 Ukrainian billionaire Zhevago fights off London fraud lawsuit Reuters

💸 Harvard's Chief Diversity Officer Plagiarized and Claimed Credit for Husband's Work Free Beacon

💸 "Vanilla Gift" card issuer faces lawsuit over card-draining scam risk Reuters

Crypto & Cyber

🔐 UAE makes first digital dirham transfer via mBridge CBDC platform Cointelegraph

🔐 Fla. Man Charged in SIM-Swapping Spree is Key Suspect in Hacker Groups Oktapus, Scattered Spider Krebs

🔐 When Is a Ponzi a Ponzi? CoinDesk

🔐 SEC asks to dismiss contested crypto case in which agency faces sanctions over ‘materially false’ statements Fortune

Trafficking

🚚 Andrew Tate loses his appeal to ease judicial restrictions as human trafficking case continues AP

🚚 EU’s drug-busting ports alliance excludes Chinese-owned Piraeus Politico

🚚 Accused smuggler nabbed with 130 endangered poisonous frogs worth $130K in her luggage BBC

🚚 Spanish Authorities Uncover Funeral Home Involved in Selling Corpses to Universities OCCRP

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What does the future of financial crimes compliance look like...? 
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