On January 28, 2025, French investigations announced they had started a criminal investigation into money laundering, tax fraud, unlicensed provision of digital asset services, and failure to implement a proper anti-money laundering program.[1]

CLS Global, a UAE-based cryptocurrency market maker has recently agreed to settle criminal charges that prosecutors have brought against it following a lengthy undercover sting operation by the FBI. The company was one of three that were caught in the operation last year that resulted in $25 million in seized assets.[1] Prosecutors allege that, between August 23 and September 8, 2024, CLS Global generated $595,000 worth of fake volume.[2]

Several Latin American governments have pushed back at the Trump Administration’s deportation efforts.  Brazil, Colombia, Honduras, and Guatemala have all pushed back. Until now, Mexico, the country most caught in the crossfire, has tried to be diplomatic.

On January 23, 2025, the Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) filed two applications for warrants of arrest before Pre-Trial Chamber II in the Situation in Afghanistan.[1] These filings have benefited from the contributions of the dedicated Afghanistan Unified Team under the supervision of Deputy Prosecutor Nazhat Shameem Khan, and multiple experts.

On January 8, Cecilia Sala, an Italian journalist, was released from Iran after being detained for twenty-one days. Sala, 29, arrived in Tehran in December on a journalist visa. For two years, she had attempted to visit Iran, but her visa application was always rejected.[1] However, after the 2024 election in Iran, her visa was finally approved. Sala, who had not been to Iran since the 2021 protests, sought to observe how the country had changed after learning that the new government was more progressive and open to foreigners.[2]

On January 23, 2025, the U.S. Supreme Court stayed a nationwide injunction of the Corporate Transparency Act (CTA).  As a result, pending a decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and possibly the U.S. Supreme Court, if a writ of certiorari is timely sought, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN).

On January 20, 2025, President Trump on his first day in office issued four executive orders  (E.O.s) concerning foreign terrorists, national security, and migration and a proclamation. The Trump Administration has also removed and demoted high-level officials in the Department of Justice.

On January 16, 2025, police in Thailand announced they had issued an arrest warrant for Somwang Bamrungkit, 42, a Thai-Cambodian dual national known in Cambodia as Ly Ratanakraksmey, in connection with the murder of Lim Kimya, 73.[1]

The death of Samuele Landi while seasteading off the coast of Dubai in an apparent effort to avoid criminal prosecution in Italy evokes the issue of a recent novel way to facilitate fugitivity.

As a still relatively new legal institution in Brazil, inserted by the National Constituent Assembly in Chapter IV of the 1988 Federal Constitution (On the Functions Essential to Justice), alongside the Federal Prosecutor General's Office (Procuradoria-Geral da República – PGR) and the Federal Public Defender's Office (Defensoria Pública da União - DPU), the mission of the Federal Attorney General's Office (Advocacia-Geral da União - AGU) is to represent the national government (the Union), both judicially and extrajudicially, i.e. all the bodies of the federal public administration, including those in the legislative and judicial spheres, as well as the other institutions essential to justice. It must also provide legal advice (general counseling functions), but in this latter case, this is limited to the bodies of the federal executive branch.[1]