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  Ex-takeaway worker is ordered to pay back £3.1m after money laundering conviction

  The Crown Prosecution Service

  January 13, 2025

  A former takeaway worker who laundered the proceeds of fraud, which saw her rise from living above a restaurant to residing in a multi-million pound rented house, in an affluent part of North London, has been ordered to pay back more than £3.1 million or face extra time in jail. Jian Wen, 42, was previously convicted at Southwark Crown Court of one charge of Money Laundering, relating to a cryptocurrency wallet containing 150 Bitcoin, for which she was sentenced to six years and eight months imprisonment. A Metropolitan Police investigation resulted in the seizure of Bitcoin wallets, with an initial estimated value of more than £300 million. Prosecutors told the court the sheer scale of the seized Bitcoin, the lack of any legitimate evidence for how it was acquired, all indicated that it was criminal property.

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  Operators of Cryptocurrency Mixers Charged with Money Laundering

  US Department of Justice

  January 10, 2025

  A federal grand jury in the Northern District of Georgia returned an indictment on Jan. 7 charging three Russian nationals for their involvement in operating the cryptocurrency mixing services Blender.io and Sinbad.io. Roman Vitalyevich Ostapenko and Alexander Evgenievich Oleynik were arrested on Dec. 1, 2024, roughly a year after Sinbad.io’s online infrastructure was seized as part of a coordinated law enforcement action among the Netherlands’ Financial Intelligence and Investigative Service, Finland’s National Bureau of Investigation, and the FBI. The third defendant, Anton Vyachlavovich Tarasov, remains at large.

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  Treasury Intensifies Sanctions Against Russia by Targeting Russia’s Oil Production and Exports

  OFAC

  January 10, 2025

  WASHINGTON — Today, the U.S. Department of the Treasury took sweeping action to fulfill the G7 commitment to reduce Russian revenues from energy, including blocking two major Russian oil producers. Today’s actions also impose sanctions on an unprecedented number of oil-carrying vessels, many of which are part of the “shadow fleet,” opaque traders of Russian oil, Russia-based oilfield service providers, and Russian energy officials. Today’s actions are underpinned by the issuance of a new determination that authorizes sanctions pursuant to Executive Order (E.O.) 14024 against persons operating or having operated in the energy sector of the Russian Federation economy. These actions substantially increase the sanctions risks associated with the Russian oil trade.