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Greetings! It’s November 14, and we’re tracking today’s top stories: The ‘Deathonomics’ powering Russia’s war machine, Chinese national faces 20 years in US prison for crypto pig butchering proceeds, US regulators warn bankers about intensified focus on financial crime, former BofA broker pleads guilty to laundering father’s bribe money, and much more…

💸 Illicit Edge Originals
Inside TD Bank’s $3 Billion Money Laundering Disaster

Jim Richards joins the latest episode of Designated with Yaya Jata Fanusie

Featured Story

🌎 The ‘Deathonomics’ Powering Russia’s War Machine. Payments for soldiers killed on the front lines are transforming local economies in some of Russia’s poorest regions. WSJ

Top Stories

🌎 Chinese national faces 20 years in US prison for crypto laundering pig-butchering proceeds. Pig butchering involves a scammer forming a relationship with a victim on messaging platforms before persuading them to make fraudulent investments. Record

💥 Illicit Edge Originals: Uncovering Pig Butchering with Erin West and Yaya Fanusie Designated

🌎 US regulators warn bankers about intensified focus on financial crime. That focus is expected to continue after Canadian lender TD Bank was hit with a record $3B fine last month. Reuters 

🌎 Former BofA Broker Pleads Guilty to Laundering His Father’s Bribe Money. John Christopher Polit’s father was an Ecuadorean official whose job was stamping out bribery. WSJ

🌎 US agencies confirm Beijing-linked telecom breach involving call records of politicians, wiretaps. FBI and CISA expect their understanding of the campaign “to grow as the investigation continues.” Record

🌎 The mysterious Virginia mansion allegedly bought with stolen Nigerian money. The man disappeared, leaving some wondering what was happening behind his nine-foot-tall carved-wood front doors. WaPo 

🌎 FBI raids home of Polymarket CEO Shayne Coplan. Polymarket is one of the most active prediction betting markets, gaining mainstream attention during the recent presidential election. Axios 

🌎 Iran ready for possible oil export curbs after Trump election. Iranian oil exports have climbed this year to near multi-year highs of 1.7M bpd despite U.S. sanctions. Reuters

🌎 A yacht, a hollow book and a ‘war room’: How the FBI ensnared a city’s leaders in a bribery investigation. Undercover FBI agents met with local officials about a downtown development in Jackson, Miss. – some now indicted on bribery charges. NBC

Russia & China

📌 Gloomy Russia Billionaires See Little to Cheer in Trump’s Win Bloomberg

📌 AstraZeneca says detained China head has lawyer, but company still in dark SCMP

📌 OMV gets over $243M in arbitral award for Gazprom's irregular German gas supplies Reuters 

📌 How China Capitalized on U.S. Indifference in Latin America WSJ

📌 Russian Food Prices Skyrocket in Growing Concern for Kremlin Bloomberg

Corruption & Financial Crime

💸 Investment firm stole $658 million in a Ponzi scheme targeting conservatives and immigrants MarketWatch

💸 Critics question the depth of Cyprus’ much-touted reforms to its secretive financial industry ICIJ 

💸 Pattern of Noncompliance. Ontario’s euthanasia regulators have tracked 428 cases of possible criminal violations — and not referred a single case to law enforcement. New Atlantis

Crypto & Cyber

🔐 South Korean Police Arrest 215 in Suspected $232M Crypto Investment Scam Investigation CoinDesk 

🔐 ‘Bitcoin Jesus’ Fights IRS Tax Evasion Case From Spanish Island Bloomberg

🔐 Guide to Protecting Yourself From Government Surveillance Wired

Trafficking

🚚 Drug Kingpin’s Son Released After Plea in Shark Fin Trafficking OCCRP 

🚚 Investigation into a European fraud network leads to seizure of more than 2,000 fake artworks Newsweek 

🚚 US ambassador says Mexico ‘closed the doors’ on security cooperation and denies its violence problem AP

“I am sometimes a fox and sometimes a lion. The whole secret of government lies in knowing when to be the one or the other.” —Napoleon

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