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🎯Brazen migrant smugglers offer services through TikTok, with videos promoting $13B industry. The cartel-linked human smugglers, known as coyotes, post high-quality promo videos showing them escorting migrants across rivers and customers smiling inside secret “stash houses” once purportedly over the border. NY Post
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🔸Top US Chip Gear Maker Accuses China Rival of 14-Month Spy Spree. Applied Materials Inc. is suing a Chinese-owned rival over efforts to steal some of its most valuable secrets, including an orchestrated employee-poaching spree and surreptitious transfers of semiconductor equipment designs. Bloomberg
🔸Binance Under Investigation in France for 'Aggravated' Money Laundering. Binance is suspected of illegally providing digital asset services to local customers, and implementing poor money laundering checks. CoinDesk
🔸US government agencies hit in global cyberattack. Clop, the ransomware gang allegedly responsible, is known to demand multimillion-dollar ransoms. But no ransom demands have been made of federal agencies. CNN
🔸Treasury Sanctions Mexico-based Transnational Human Smuggling Organization. “In close coordination with our law enforcement colleagues and Mexican partners, today’s designation of Ofelia Hernandez Salas and her criminal enterprise aims to disrupt the group’s global operations.” U.S. Treasury Department
🔸Russia Pays Sakhalin Dividends In Yuan. Last year, Russia announced it will no longer accept the American currency as payment for its energy commodities but will instead switch to Chinese and Emirati currencies. Oil Price
🔸US sanctions North Korean couple accused of helping to procure equipment for ballistic missiles. Treasury says Choe Chol Min worked with North Korean weapons trading officials to buy equipment for Iranian customers. AP
🔸‘Lottery lawyer’ who stole $107M from winners for yachts, vacations gets 13 years for mobbed-up scheme. Kurland — a lawyer earning roughly $500,000 annually — targeted jackpot-winning clients starting in 2018, clinching a $1.5 billion Mega Millions winner, a $245 million Powerball winner and a $150 million jackpot winner. NY Post
🔸Chinese spies breached hundreds of public, private networks. Word of the breach arrived with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken departing for China this weekend as part of the Biden administration’s push to repair deteriorating ties between Washington and Beijing. AP
🔸Arrests made in thefts of Yogi Berra World Series rings, Roger Maris MVP trophy. Federal authorities announced charges against a ring of nine people for thefts of millions of dollars’ worth of paintings, sports memorabilia and other valuables including World Series rings belonging to baseball legend Yogi Berra. ESPN
🔸Mining Pools Are the New Mixers For Cybercriminals. Although funds always came to the exchange via intermediary wallets, Chainalysis found instances in which the wallet receiving ransomware proceeds sent funds directly to the mining pool wallet, which then sent the coins to the exchange. CoinDesk
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