GERMAN Chancellor Olaf Scholz today pulled the plug on the controversial Nord Stream 2 pipeline following Russia’s incursion into Ukraine overnight.
The undersea pipeline of natural gas from Russia to northern Germany is owned by a subsidiary of Russia’s state-owned Gazprom.
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Treasury Imposes Sanctions on Enablers of Iran’s Nuclear Program
OFAC
WASHINGTON — Today, the Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) is designating five entities and one individual based in Iran for their support to key entities that manage and oversee Iran’s nuclear program, including the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) and the AEOI-subordinate Iran Centrifuge Technology Company (TESA). Today’s action, which targets entities procuring, or manufacturing, critical technologies for TESA and AEOI, is taken in furtherance of U.S. policy that Iran be denied a nuclear weapon, as stated in National Security Presidential Memorandum 2.
Final sentence imposed in multimillion-dollar money laundering conspiracy
IRS Criminal Investigation
HOUSTON — A naturalized citizen from Arlington has been ordered to prison for unlicensed money transmitting and money laundering, announced U.S. Attorney Nicholas J. Ganjei.
Nhiem Thi Dan “Sam” Nguyen entered a guilty plea Oct. 5, 2021.
U.S. District Judge Keith Ellison has now sentenced Nguyen to serve 40 months in federal prison to be immediately followed by one year of supervised release. She will also forfeit $76,848 in cash seized at the time of her arrest and another $17,801.52 in seized accounts. Judge Ellison found Nguyen managed others in the conspiracy and did not commit the crimes inadvertently.
FinCEN Issues Analysis of Fentanyl-Related Threat Patterns and Trends in Bank Secrecy Act Reports
FinCEN
WASHINGTON—Today, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) issued a Financial Trend Analysis focused on patterns and trends identified in Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) data linked to fentanyl-related illicit finance. Between January and December 2024, financial institutions filed 1,246 BSA reports that identified suspected fentanyl-related activity amounting to approximately $1.4 billion in suspicious transactions. The reported financial activity highlighted various aspects of the illicit fentanyl supply chain—including precursor chemical procurement, fentanyl trafficking, and fentanyl-linked money laundering—that have touchpoints across the U.S. financial sector.