INSIGHT: Thousands trafficked to Southeast Asia and forced to run ‘pig butchering’ scams

Regulatory Watch News

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  Former Principals of Aerospace Start-Up Charged with Fraud and Tax Crimes

  US Department of Justice

  March 18, 2025

  An indictment was unsealed today charging five former principals of Theia Group Inc., a Washington, D.C.-based aerospace start-up company, with conspiracy and fraud. According to the indictment, Erlend Olson, John Gallagher, Stephen Buscher, Joseph Fargnoli, and Jamil Swati held various executive positions at the company, including chief executive officer, executive vice president, chief financial officer, chief technology officer, and head of strategic investment, respectively. They allegedly perpetrated a multi-year scheme to defraud investors and lenders out of $250 million, and Olson evaded more than $3.9 million in personal federal income taxes.

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  Treasury Targets Mexico-Based Leader of Transnational Criminal Organization Responsible for Smuggling Thousands of Migrants Across the U.S. Southern Border

  OFAC

  March 18, 2025

  WASHINGTON — Today, the Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned Jumilca Sandivel Hernandez Perez (Hernandez Perez), a key leader of the Lopez Human Smuggling Organization (HSO), a Guatemala-based Transnational Criminal Organization responsible for the smuggling of thousands of illegal aliens from Guatemala, through Mexico, and into the United States. Additionally, Hernandez Perez has coordinated her illegal activity with members of the violent U.S.-sanctioned drug trafficking organization, La Linea, which among other heinous acts is responsible for the November 2019 murders of nine American citizens, including six children, in the Mexican state of Sonora.

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  BaFin warns consumers about services offered by the company EmexFunding

  BaFin

  March 18, 2025

  The Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin) warns consumers about the company EmexFunding and the services it is offering. BaFin suspects the unknown operators of the website emexfunding.com of offering consumers financial, investment and cryptoasset services without the required authorisation.