On October 14, Europol and Eurojust assisted an investigation led by the French Gendarmerie (Gendarmerie Nationale), resulting in the dismantling of a criminal network counterfeiting French Protected Designation of Origin (PDO) wines in Italy.  The Italian Carabinieri Corps (NAS Carabinieri) and the Swiss Federal Police (Police Federale Swiss) also participated in the investigation.  The criminal network allegedly made fake French red wine and charged up to EUR 15,000 per bottle.  The network produced the forged wine in Italy then delivered it to an Italian airport that exported them worldwide to honest wine traders.[1]

                On October 14, 2024, the Canadian government expelled six Indian diplomats, including the High Commissioner, Sanjay Kumar Verma. The expulsion occurred shortly after Canada accused the Indian government of committing homicide and extorting separatist activists living in Canada. So far, the Indian government has denied Canada’s account of what has occurred to their diplomats, claiming they pulled them out of Canada because they were in “an atmosphere of extremism and violence” that endangered their safety.[1] India has also retaliated by expelling six Canadian officials from its country including Stuart Wheeler, the Canadian embassy’s second-highest ranking diplomat. However, these actions have not deterred Canada from its efforts to stifle India’s repression of dissidents living abroad. According to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Canada “will never tolerate the involvement of a foreign government threatening and killing Canadian citizens on Canadian soil.”[2]

               On October 22, 2024, the U.S. Department of Justice announced the unsealing of a superseding indictment,[1] charging murder-for-hire, money laundering, and sanctions evasion offenses against Ruhollar Bashanti, also known as Roohollah Azimi; Fnu Lnu, also known as Haj Taher, Haj Taher; Hossein Sedghi; and Seyed Mohammad Forouzan, all of Iran.[2]

                On September 20, 2024, in a ceremony at the Museum Volkenkunde, the Dutch government returned 288 artifacts to Indonesia. This was the second time the Netherlands had returned stolen artifacts to the countries it colonized since 2020 and is in response to a report the Colonial Collections Committee issued imploring the government to comply with requests for the repatriation of artifacts from former colonies.[1] The newly returned artifacts include Hindu-Buddhist sculptures, a likeness of the god Ganesha that was shipped to the Netherlands in 1843, and sculptures depicting the gods Bhairava, Nandi, and Brahma that were taken from a 13^th-century temple in East Java during the 1800s.[2] According to Eppo Bruins, the Minister of Education, Culture, and Science of Netherlands, “These objects should never have been here [the Netherlands] … There was looting and pillaging going on in the colonial period and other types of involuntary loss of cultural objects. It is a matter of material justice to return them.”[3]

                 On September 5, 2024, a judge in Michigan sentenced two brothers, Samuel Ogoshi, 24, and Samson Ogoshi, 21, of Lagos, Nigeria, to over seventeen years in prison for their involvement in a social media sextortion scheme. The scheme targeted over 100 people, including eleven minors, and led to the death of Jordan DeMay, a seventeen-year-old high school student from Marquette, Michigan. The Ogoshi brothers were indicted in November 2022 and extradited to the U.S. from Nigeria in August 2023. Both men pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to exploit minors in April 2024 and will be on supervised release upon completing their seventeen-year sentence. Ezekial Roberts, a third suspect in the case, is currently in Nigeria awaiting extradition to the U.S. This is the first time Nigerians have successfully been prosecuted for sextortion in the U.S.

                On October 9, 2024, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Southern District of New York announced that Zhanna Soldatenkova and Ruslan Almetov, both Russian nationals, were indicted along with Arthur Petrov, a dual Russian and German national, for export control violations, smuggling, wire fraud, and money laundering in connection with their alleged participation in a scheme to procure U.S.-sourced microelectronics subject to U.S. export controls on behalf of a Russia-based supplier of critical electronics components for manufactures furnishing weaponry and other equipment to the Russian military. [1] Petrov had already been charged with a criminal complaint.  He was arrested on August 26, 2023, in Cyprus at the request of the U.S.  Earlier this year, Cyprus extradited him, and he arrived on August 8, 2024.  After his initial appearance, the court ordered him detained without bond.  Soldatenkova and Almetov are at large.[2]

                On October 11, 2024, a resident of Hong Kong pleaded guilty to trying to smuggle 29 Eastern box turtles, a protected species, individually wrapped in socks inside a duffle bag.  When apprehended, the woman was attempting to paddle an inflatable kayak across a lake from Vermont to Canada.[1]

                On October 10, 2024, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) imposed a record $1.3 billion penalty against TD Bank, N.A. and TD Bank USA, N.A. (collectively, TD Bank, or the Bank) for violations of the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA), the main anti-money laundering (AML) law that protects the financial system from illicit use.[1]

                  On October 4, 2024, the United States Supreme Court accepted the petition for certiorari filed by Smith & Wesson and six other defendants in the case brought by the Ministry of Foreign Relations for the Government of Mexico.[1]

                 Towards the end of September 2024, Europol welcomed the global law enforcement community to its headquarters in The Hague for the annual European Police Chiefs Convention (EPCC), where key challenges facing modern policing were discussed.