Plus: Dollarization of North Korean Economy, Once Vital, Now Threat to Kim's Rule...
View in browser

6/9/23

Illicit Edge logo

Breaking News for Financial Crime Professionals

Happy Friday! It’s almost the weekend, and we’re tracking today’s top stories: Taiwan's Acer ships hardware to Russia, Islamic State's growing resources, Qatar's $90M diamond heist, DPRK's dollarization fallout, and much more…

Featured Story

 

🎯Taiwan's Acer ships computer hardware to Russia after saying it would suspend business. Records show equipment produced by Acer was supplied to Russia both through Acer's wholly-owned subsidiary registered in Switzerland and a number of delivery services. [more]

 

Top Stories

 

🔸US Sees Islamic State Affiliates Pooling Resources, Growing Capabilities. U.S. officials tasked with tracking Islamic State are seeing worrisome signs that the terror group’s core leadership is strengthening control over its global network of affiliates despite a series of key losses. [more]

 

🔸The Wild Story of the Psychic, the Sheikh and the $90 Million Diamond Heist. This is the previously unreported inside story of how the former Prime Minister of Qatar became the victim of one of the world’s biggest – and weirdest – jewelry heists. [more]

 

🔸'Dollarization' of North Korean economy, once vital, now potential threat to Kim's rule. North Korea has tolerated the widespread use of more stable foreign currencies like U.S. dollars and Chinese yuan since a bungled revaluation of the won in 2009 triggered runaway inflation and public unrest. [more]

 

🔸Donald Trump indicted on 7 counts in classified documents probe. Former President Donald Trump has been indicted on seven counts in the special counsel’s classified documents probe, a stunning development that marks the first time a former president has faced federal charges. [more]

 

🔸Justice Department Launches Corporate Crime Database. The federal law enforcement agency has launched a corporate crime database, which for the first time aggregates all the cases and enforcement actions related to corporate wrongdoing. [more]

 

🔸U.S. Treasury Department: Principles for Promoting Fair and Effective Compliance. [more]

 

🔸Flight to Madrid carrying half a ton of cocaine exposes network of collusion between government and drug traffickers in Bolivia. The discovery of 484 kg of drugs on a plane at Barajas airport has prompted the La Paz government to acknowledge that drug trafficking has ‘permeated’ its institutions. [more]

 

🔸Army of fake social media accounts defend UAE presidency of climate summit. The president of the Cop28 climate talks is Sultan Al Jaber, who is also the chief executive of the state oil giant Adnoc, which has major net zero-busting expansion plans. [more]

 

🔸Venezuela’s Secret Weapon: A “Dark Fleet” Of Oil Tankers. PDVSA, Venezuela's national oil company, has leased numerous tankers, many in poor condition, to facilitate the clandestine shipment of oil, with Iran providing critical aid to rebuild Venezuela's oil infrastructure. [more]

IN THE NEWS

Russia & China

 

🔸These economies benefited from Russia’s isolation — but they now risk Western retaliation. Caucasus countries Georgia and Armenia, whose economies unexpectedly boomed in the wake of the war in Ukraine, are now facing the prospect of Western retaliation following a spike in trade with Russia. [more]

 

🔸China: 'Hacker empire' US is 'spreading rumors’ with talk of Cuba spy station. The reported deal could raise questions about a near-term visit to China that U.S. officials say Secretary of State Antony Blinken is planning. [more]

 

🔸Why Sequoia Capital is sawing off its Chinese branch. Investors and bankers in China have seized on Sequoia’s decision as a sign that the country is losing important business connections with the rest of the world. [more]

 

🔸Yandex granted Nasdaq lifeline subject to Russia restructuring. Often dubbed "Russia's Google", Yandex is making progress on a corporate restructuring plan that should see it divest ownership and control of core, Russia-based businesses, in what could be one of Russia's most significant corporate deals this year. [more]

Corruption & Financial Crime

 

🔸British insurance salesman kept North Korea’s fleet ‘afloat’. A British marine insurance salesman and football club owner “kept North Korea’s foreign trade fleet afloat” in apparent violation of UN sanctions, years after the UK government was made aware of suspicions over his activities. [more]

 

🔸Malaysia wins appeal against partial award in $15 billion claim by sultan's heirs. The ruling by the French Court of Appeal questioned the jurisdiction of Spanish arbitrator Gustavo Stampa, who ordered last year’s eye-watering payout. [more]

 

🔸Binance Money Trail Reveals $70 Billion Flowing Through Silvergate, Signature. Some of the funds flowed out to foreign entities, according to the filing, which cited a review of financial records including bank statements, deposits, canceled checks and wire transfers. [more]

Cyber

 

🔸Microsoft OneDrive down worldwide following claims of DDoS attacks. Microsoft is investigating an ongoing outage that is preventing OneDrive customers from accessing the cloud file hosting service worldwide, just as a threat actor known as 'Anonymous Sudan' claims to be DDoSing the service. [more]

 

🔸Experts Unveil Exploit for Recent Windows Vulnerability Under Active Exploitation. Details have emerged about a now-patched actively exploited security flaw in Microsoft Windows that could be abused by a threat actor to gain elevated privileges on affected systems. [more]

 

🔸Barracuda Urges Replacing — Not Patching — Its Email Security Gateways. It’s not often that a zero-day vulnerability causes a network security vendor to urge customers to physically remove and decommission an entire line of affected hardware — as opposed to just applying software updates. [more]

📩

Share Illicit Edge with friends!

They can subscribe here for free and never miss a story.

The Illicit Edge, P.O. Box 20559, New York, NY 10025

Manage preferences