On April 30, 2020, Bank Hapoalim B.M. (BHBM), an Israeli bank with international operations, and its willy owned subsidiary, Hapoalim (Switzerland) Ltd. (BHS), have agreed to forfeit $20,733,322 and pay a fine of $9,329,995 to settle a criminal investigation into their participation in a money laundering conspiracy that were allegedly part of the FIFA international bribery scheme.[1]

On April 30, 2020, the U.S. government announced the guilty plea of Bank Hapoalim (Switzerland) Ltd. and filing of criminal charges against Bank Hapoalim B.M. for conspiring with U.S. taxpayers and others to hide more than $7.6 billion in more than 5,500 secret Swiss and Israeli bank accounts and the income made from these accounts from the Internal Revenue Service.[1]

On April 30, 2020, the German Federal Minister of the Interior Horst Seehofer banned all activities by the Shiite terrorist organization Hezbollah (in English: Party of God, also transliterated as Hizbollah and Hizbullah) in Germany. To ensure that evidence of potential sub-organizations in Germany could not be destroyed when this ban was announced, police authorities in North Rhine-Westphalia, Bremen, and Berlin have been conducting searches at 6 a.m.  on a total of four association premises and the private residences of the leaders of each association.

On Friday, April 24, 2020, a former FBI agent was arrested near his home in Lafayette, California for allegedly accepting more than $200,000 in cash bribes and gifts for providing sensitive information to Armenian organized crime.[1]

On April 22, 2020, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9^th Circuit affirmed the dismissal by the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California for failure to state a claim of an action brought under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act by Almaty, the capital city in Kazakhstan.[1]

As the frauds and related crimes from Covid-19 occur, international organizations worldwide are providing guidance and assistance to their members to prevent, investigate, and prosecute crimes arising from the pandemic.  This article looks in particular at the efforts of the Egmont Group, IOSCO, and Eurojust.

On April 8, 2020, the High Court of Justice, Queen’s Bench Division, Administrative Court overturned lower court’s orders in favor of Unexplained Wealth Orders (UWOs) and related interim freezing orders (IFOs).[1] The lower court issued the orders based on the applications of the National Crime Agency (“NCA”), which were filed without notice to the Respondents.  The Respondents applied to discharge the orders.

In a letter dated January 27, 2020, Judge Jorge Guzmán Urquilla of the Examining Court of San Francisco Gotera asked U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo for all the documentation that the U.S. has to make available regarding the massacre at El Mozote, El Salvador, including the military officials accused of perpetrating the crime.[1] In addition to Secretary Pompeo, copies of the letter were sent to Defense Secretary Mark Esper, Defense Intelligence Agency Director Robert P. Ashley, Jr., and Central Intelligence Agency Director Gina Haspel. 

On April 17, 2020, the UK High Court delivered a judgment awarding $11 million in damages and expenses to a former partner at global accounting firm Ernst & Young (EY) who exposed money laundering at a major gold refinery in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The ruling follows a long-running saga involving a gold-importing scam and claims of a cover-up.

On March 19, 2020, the European Court of Justice (ECJ), acting on  a request for a preliminary ruling from the Sofia City Court, Bulgaria, ruled that European Union (EU) law does not preclude Member States from providing for civil proceedings for confiscation that are unrelated to a finding of a criminal offense.[1]