Category: MEA

Regulatory Watch News

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  Treasury Exposes Money Laundering Network Using Digital Assets to Evade Sanctions

  OFAC

  December 4, 2024

  WASHINGTON — Today, the Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) is sanctioning five individuals and four entities that are associated with or leverage the TGR Group, a sprawling international network of businesses and employees that have facilitated significant sanctions circumvention on behalf of Russian elites. This action also identifies a Wyoming-based entity that is owned 50 percent or more by a sanctioned individual. Today’s action continues the G7 commitment to hold accountable parties that evade or offset the impact of international sanctions, including by using digital assets, and to impose costs on illicit actors that use digital assets to enhance and transfer their wealth. These designations are the result of a collaborative effort with the United Kingdom’s (UK) National Crime Agency, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) government, the Drug Enforcement Administration, and the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network.

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  Operation Destabilise: NCA disrupts $multi-billion Russian money laundering networks with links to, drugs, ransomware and espionage, resulting in 84 arrests

  National Crime Agency

  December 4, 2024

  An international NCA-led investigation - Operation Destabilise - has exposed and disrupted Russian money laundering networks supporting serious and organised crime around the world: spanning from the streets of the UK, to the Middle East, Russia, and South America. Investigators have identified two Russian-speaking networks collaborating at the heart of the criminal enterprise; Smart and TGR. Operation Destabilise is being revealed today as the US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) announces sanctions against the Russian-speaking men and women at the head of these networks, as well as four businesses linked to TGR.

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  Chile and Europol sign Liaison Officer Agreement and SIENA Memorandum of Understanding

  Europol

  December 4, 2024

  In November 2024, Luis Cordero, Undersecretary of Chile's Ministry of the Interior and Public Security, and Catherine De Bolle, the Executive Director of the European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Cooperation – Europol, signed a Liaison Officer Agreement and a Memorandum of Understanding on a secure line connection between Chile and Europol.