Plus: How Deep is Deutsche Bank Link to $738M Singapore Money Laundering Scandal?
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8/23/23

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Hello Wednesday! It’s August 23, and we’re tracking today’s top stories: Huawei's secret network of chips, Trump security aide flips in Mar-a-Lago case, Binance's Russia gamble, Deutsche Bank's link to Singapore money laundering scandal, and much more...

 

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Featured Story

 

🎯 Huawei Is Building a Secret Network for Chips. Huawei is building a collection of secret semiconductor-fabrication facilities across China, a shadow manufacturing network to let the blacklisted company skirt US sanctions. Reuters

 

Top Stories

 

🌎 Trump Mar-a-Lago security aide flipped after changing lawyers. Who's next? Trump and longtime aides Walt Nauta and Carlos de Oliveira are also charged in the case with taking steps to obstruct investigators seeking to recover the government documents. Politico

 

🌎 Binance Faces Legal Risks Over Russia Play. Binance claims it adheres to Western sanctions in Russia, but 5 blacklisted lenders are still processing payments for the exchange. Fortune

 

🌎 Deutsche Bank Is Creditor to Alleged Launderers’ Singapore Firm. Deutsche Bank’s facility to Golden Eagle Assets is secured against “all monies” at the investment holding company. Bloomberg

 

🌎 US Enforces Visa Restrictions on Chinese Officials Over Tibet Policies. Tibetans who live outside of China say the government has been systematically persecuting, imprisoning and killing Tibetans for decades. VOA

 

🌎 Balancer Depositors Pull Nearly $100M in Crypto After Vulnerability Warning. One of Ethereum’s top decentralized crypto trading projects is urging some customers to withdraw their tokens after the discovery of a critical vulnerability that could place tens of millions of dollars in crypto at risk. CoinDesk

 

🌎 The Wrong People Just Got Their Hands on an Elite Drone Unit. One of Mexico’s most violent cartels has just created its own elite unit of drone operators, a highly trained group of sicarios dedicated to tweaking commercial drones and turning them into flying bombs. Daily Beast

 

🌎 Deepfake Imposter Scams Are Driving a New Wave of Fraud. The proliferation of scam tech has alarmed regulators, police and people at the highest levels of the financial industry. Bloomberg

 

🌎 How Europe turns a blind eye to Russia smuggling dual-use microchips. In spite of sanctions, microchips from U.S. companies Texas Instruments and Analog Devices continue to be imported into Russia, where they have military applications. The Insider

 

🌎 NYC mayor urges Biden to declare 'state of emergency' for New York amid migrant crisis. Mayor Adams called the migrant crisis in New York City 'the greatest – I believe – humanitarian crisis this city has ever witnessed.’ Fox News

 

🌎 How Musk, Thiel, Zuckerberg, and Andreessen – Four Billionaire Techno-Oligarchs – Are Creating an Alternate, Autocratic Reality. If we ask how we got to a place of radical income inequality, post-truth reality, and the looming potential for a second American Civil War, we need look no further than these four. Vanity Fair

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IN THE NEWS

Russia & China

 

💥 The Russia Sanctions Are Working Project Syndicate

 

💥 Can Kyiv Sanction Its Way To A Victory? Forbes

 

💥 A New Supply Chain Attack Hit Close to 100 Victims – and Clues Point to China Wired

 

💥 Chinese official sentenced to life in prison for Bitcoin mining, corruption Cointelegraph

 

💥 How Russian hackers targeted NATO’s Vilnius summit Politico

Corruption & Financial Crime

 

💸 US fines Nomura $35 Million over traders' lies about bond prices Reuters

 

💸 Amazon AI scammers blew millions on Lake Como wedding and cars CNBC

 

💸 Corruption Probe of King Charles’ Charities Inexplicably Dropped Daily Beast

 

💸 San Francisco hit with ‘tidal wave’ of fentanyl overdose deaths as city on track to set grim record NY Post

 

💸 Sigma Lithium, eyeing buyout, sues ex-CEO and daughter-in-law over trade secrets Reuters

 

💸 Ex-JPMorgan Gold Traders Get Prison for ‘Prolific Spoofing’ Bloomberg

Crypto & Cyber

 

🔑 Binance.US Looks to Crypto Startup MoonPay as Alternative After US Banks Cut Ties Bloomberg

 

🔑 Ex-OpenSea Executive Nate Chastain Gets 3 Months in Prison for Insider Trading CoinDesk

 

🔑 Scraped data of 2.6 million Duolingo users released on hacking forum Bleepingcomputer

 

🔑 Not everything is secret in encrypted apps like iMessage and WhatsApp WaPo

 

🔑 Ivanti warns customers another zero-day is under active attack TechCrunch

"May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house." --George Carlin

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