The International Enforcement Law Reporter is a monthly print and online journal covering news and trends in international enforcement law.
Since September 1985, the International Enforcement Law Reporter has analyzed the premier developments in both the substantive and procedural aspects of international enforcement law. Read by practitioners, academics, and politicians, the IELR is a valuable guide to the difficult and dynamic field of international law.
On December 9, 2025, the counsel for the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) filed a brief informing the United States Supreme Court that it was dismissing the criminal case against Hernán Lopez, who was convicted on one count of conspiring to commit honest-services wire fraud.
On January 21, 2026, the United States (U.S.) Department of Justice (DOJ) announced that it gained custody of thirty-seven fugitives from Mexico who are defendants in federal criminal cases around the U.S. The charges included narcoterrorism, providing material support to a foreign terrorist organization, firearms trafficking, human smuggling, money laundering, and several drug trafficking offenses, including conspiracy to traffic methamphetamine, fentanyl, and cocaine.
We at the IELR send you best wishes for the new year. 2025 was momentous for the international enforcement community, and we are grateful to have had you following along with our coverage during our 40th year of discussing international enforcement developments.
On January 8, 2026, the French financial prosecutors announced that British-based bank HSBC had agreed to pay a €267.5 million fine to settle criminal charges concerning an alleged dividend tax fraud, which a Paris court has approved.
The C$176.9 million administrative monetary penalty imposed against the Vancouver-based, overseas-operated, cryptocurrency exchange Xeltox Enterprises Ltd., operating under the name Cryptomus, by the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada (FINTRAC) on October 22, 2025, highlights the regulatory perils that face cryptocurrency exchanges that operate in Canada outside the law.
At its annual meeting on November 24-27, 2025, in Marrakech, Morocco, the INTERPOL General Assembly (GA) adopted changes to INTERPOL’s Rules on the Processing of Data (RPD) and the Statute of the Commission for the Control of INTERPOL’s Files (CCF Statute).
In yet another case, the government conducted an investigation that, as it is described in the Commission’s decision, “had led [the government] to the [individual], and upon her interrogation…she had confessed to and provided details of her alleged crime.”
On January 7, 2026, the United States (U.S.) military boarded and seized an oil tanker sailing under the Russian flag with alleged ties to Venezuela.[2] In 2024, the U.S. government sanctioned the vessel, named the Marinera, due to its alleged connections to the Iranian government and Hezbollah, in addition to Russia and Venezuela.
On January 2, 2025, the United States (U.S.) government sent special armed forces into Venezuela to arrest Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife. Shortly thereafter, U.S. President Donald Trump declared that the U.S. would “run the country.”
On December 10, 2025, the second International Conference of the Global Alliance to Counter Migrant Smuggling (“the Conference’) assembled in Brussels, hosted by the European Commission. During this conference, over fifty of the eighty delegations in attendance endorsed a Joint Declaration aimed at countering migrant smuggling through a series of actions emphasizing greater international cooperation, particularly in the digital sphere.
