Hello Wednesday! It’s November 6, and we’re tracking today’s top stories: A huge bank pleaded guilty to conspiring to launder money, so why weren't top executives charged? China hack enabled vast spying on U.S. officials, Turkey launching Ruble swap to ease trade squeezed by sanctions, inside the massive crime industry that’s hacking billion-dollar companies, and much more…

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🎯 A huge bank pleaded guilty to conspiring to launder money, so why weren't top executives charged? By any measure, the lawbreaking by the U.S. subsidiary of Canada's Toronto-Dominion Bank was spectacular. LAT

Top Stories

🌎 China Hack Enabled Vast Spying on U.S. Officials, Likely Ensnaring Thousands of Contacts. Hackers scooped up call logs, unencrypted texts and some audio, piercing America’s communications infrastructure. WSJ 

💥 FBI Seeks Public Help to Identify Chinese Hackers Behind Global Cyber Intrusions Hacker News

🌎 Turkey Launching Ruble Swap to Ease Trade Squeezed by Sanctions. Firms are finding creative ways around payment issues while creating lucrative opportunities for middlemen. Bloomberg 

🚩 To counter the Axis of Evasion, the US must tackle third-country procurement networks Atlantic Council 

🚩 US arrests Turkish businessman accused of helping Venezuela skirt sanctions AP

🌎 Inside the Massive Crime Industry That’s Hacking Billion-Dollar Companies. When you download a piece of pirated software, you’re entering a highly complex hacking ecosystem that’s fueling some of the biggest breaches on the planet. Wired

🌎 Investigators search Netflix offices in France and the Netherlands. Searches were being conducted simultaneously as part of a preliminary investigation into tax fraud and money laundering. NBC

🌎 How Syria Became the Middle East’s Drug Dealer. Bashar al-Assad has propped up his regime by exploiting the Middle East’s love of captagon. New Yorker 

🌎 Biden-Harris Admin Sued for Obstructing Probe Into Embattled Iran Envoy Rob Malley. 'There is mass confusion on what authority Malley had to view classified documents and when he had it'. Free Beacon

🌎 Oxfam says $41B of the World Bank’s climate spending ‘effectively unaccounted for’. The bank has pledged tens of billions to climate projects but can’t say how much was actually spent. ICIJ

🌎 FBI finds $8.3M embezzled by ‘pure evil’ Kansas banker in a cryptocurrency account in the Cayman Islands. Dozens of people whose life savings had been embezzled learned that federal law enforcement had recovered their money. Fortune 

🌎 Kidnapped, trafficked and incarcerated: The unsettling death of a Rohingya child in India. Two years after Hamida Begum vanished from a Bangladesh refugee camp, she was found dead at a detention center in mysterious circumstances. Telegraph

Russia

🇷🇺 Russian rocket launches Iranian satellites into orbit as Moscow and Tehran expand ties AP

🇷🇺 Russia suspected of sending incendiary devices on US- and Canada-bound planes CNN 

🇷🇺 Russia’s Oil Fleet and the Floating Armories That Help Keep Profits Flowing Bloomberg 

🇷🇺 Virginia company, senior executives charged with exporting U.S. technology to Russia UPI

China

🇨🇳 Chinese Money Launderers’ Guilty Pleas Highlight China’s Role in America’s Fentanyl Crisis FDD 

🇨🇳 Star Hedge Fund’s Surge in China Threatened by US Indictment Bloomberg 

🇨🇳 Rare earths in spotlight amid US-China tensions, Myanmar turmoil SCMP 

🇨🇳 Did U.S. Semiconductor Export Controls Harm Innovation? CSIS

Corruption & Financial Crime

💸 ‘Fat Leonard,’ Navy contractor behind one of the military’s biggest scandals, sentenced to 15 years AP 

💸 Co-creator of UndeadApes NFTs found guilty of fraud and money laundering in 'rug pull' scheme Art Newspaper

💸 Central Figure in Philippines COVID Corruption Scandal Spent $20M on Dubai Property OCCRP

Crypto & Cyber

🔐 Canadian authorities arrest hacker linked to Snowflake data breaches TechCrunch 

🔐 New Android Banking Malware 'ToxicPanda' Targets Users with Fraudulent Money Transfers Hacker News 

🔐 South Korea fines Meta $15M for illegally collecting information on Facebook users AP

Trafficking

🚚 Anti-trafficking activist exposes how ‘slave ledger’ is being used by smugglers to control migrants Fox 

🚚 Texas Troops Seize $5M Worth of Meth Stashed In Hidden Compartment Newsweek 

🚚 Italian Dealer Accused of Trafficking 2,000 Artifacts Wanted by U.S. Authorities Artnet 

“If opportunity doesn't knock, build a door.” — Milton Berle

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