On April 21, 2026, Reed D. Rubinstein, the Legal Adviser to the United States (U.S.) Department of State issued a memorandum (hereafter the Rubinstein memo), justifying the air attack on Iran (called @realDonaldTrump/posts/116147082884192486">Operation Epic Fury).[1] This article discusses the memo and critical responses to it from the international legal community.

On April 30, 2026, the Colombian government extradited a German national living in Colombia to the United States (U.S.) on charges that he owned and operated “The Versus Project” (hereafter Versus), an online dark web marketplace that enabled its over 380,000 registered users to buy and sell illegal goods.

In a landmark decision, on April 13, 2026, a French corporation and its executives were found guilty of helping to fund international terrorism. French cement company Lafarge has been officially charged in the Paris Criminal Court with aiding and financing international terrorism, with four executives receiving multiyear prison sentences and the firm itself ordered to pay €1.125 million, the maximum penalty in fines.

In late April 2026, the United States (U.S.) Department of Justice (DOJ) unveiled charges against two Chinese nationals for their role in managing scam centers across the Thai-Burmese border region and Cambodia. The scammers mainly targeted Americans by convincing them to invest in fraudulent cryptocurrency portfolios that promised high returns or by impersonating law enforcement, often demanding a sum of money from the victims.

On April 17, 2026—three years to the day since the civil war erupted between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in Sudan—the United States (U.S.) Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) announced sweeping sanctions against five individuals and entities linked to the recruitment and deployment of former Colombian military personnel to fight on behalf of the RSF.

On April 19, 2026, four people, including two United States (U.S.) officers of the Central Intelligence Agency (C.I.A.), were killed in a car crash in Chihuahua state in northern Mexico.[2] The victims included Pedro Román Oseguera Cervantes, director of the Chihuahua State Investigation Agency, and Manuel Genaro Méndez Montes, an agency officer and the driver; the U.S. agents have not yet been named.

On April 28, 2026, Europol published the new edition of the “Internet Organized Crime Threat Assessment” (IOCTA) 2026, providing an in-depth analysis of the latest trends and developments in cybercrime affecting the European Union (EU). The report, titled "How encryption, proxies, and AI are expanding cybercrime," underscores the accelerating pace and sophistication of cyber threats, emphasizing the need for enhanced law enforcement capabilities and international cooperation.

On April 15, 2026, Irish fugitive Daniel Kinahan was apprehended by United Arab Emirates (UAE) authorities executing an Irish court’s arrest warrant. Kinahan is a leader of the Kinahan cartel, a multinational organization involved in heroin and cocaine trafficking, and is alleged to have participated in several murders.

 On April 22, 2026, the United States (U.S.) Department of Justice (DOJ) brought a civil forfeiture complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, requesting the forfeiture of a mansion situated in Beverly Hills, California, alleged to have been bought and renovated with approximately $30 million in proceeds of a scheme to defraud the U.S. Department of War’s (DOW) Defense Logistics Agency (DLA), pay bribes to an official of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI), and violate U.S. money laundering laws.

 At its 15^th sitting held on April 22, 2026, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) adopted a Resolution on tracking the proceeds of the crime denounced by Sergei Magnitsky and holding its perpetrators accountable. The debate and resolution were based on a comprehensive Report prepared by the Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights.