On April 3, 2024, the Swiss Federal Administrative Court rendered a judgement on tax administrative assistance, regarding the topics of fishing expeditions and attorney-client privilege between U.S. lawyers and their Swiss clients.  The event that triggered the case was a request for administrative assistance from the U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to the Swiss Federal Tax Administration (FTA), regarding a U.S. taxpayer (hereafter: the Taxpayer). 

        After the bribery and money laundering accusations, Polit was arrested in March 2022. Court documents and evidence presented at the trial show that, between 2010 to 2015, Carlos Roman Polit Faggioni, 73, solicited and received over $10 million in bribe payments from Odebrecht  S.A., the Brazil-based construction multinational.  

        Those who have tried to warn INTERPOL of a potentially incoming abusive Red Notice, diffusion or other government request most probably already know that the Commission for the Control of INTERPOL’s Files (CCF) does not consider such requests from individuals on their merits and does not render decisions in their regard.  INTERPOL calls such attempts to warn “pre-emptive requests.”  

        On April 23, 2024, the European Parliament adopted a legislative resolution on the proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on the transfer of proceedings in criminal matters. With the innovative solutions adopted in other instruments, such as European Arrest Warrant, MLAT (1996), prisoner transfer, confiscation, the gathering of evidence through a European Investigation Order, and the carrying out of criminal investigations through a Joint Investigation Team, the European Union has revolutionized the system of international cooperation in criminal matters.

        On April 24, 2024, the European Parliament adopted a package of laws buttressing the European Union’s mechanisms to combat money laundering and terrorist financing. The European Parliament adopted the Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) package consisting of the sixth Anti-Money Laundering (AML) directive  (adopted with 513 votes in favor, 25 against, and 33 abstentions), the EU “single rulebook” regulation (adopted with 479 votes in favor, 61 against, and 32 abstentions), and the Anti-Money Laundering Authority a(AMLA) regulation (adopted with 482 votes in favor, 47 against, and 38 abstentions).

                On April 29, 2024, Spain arrested Roger Ver, an early investor in bitcoins, on a U.S. extradition warrant.  In an indictment unsealed in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, Ver is charged with mail fraud, tax evasion, and filing false tax returns.[1]

                In April 2024, the Metropolitan Museum of Art (Met) took two actions with respect to recovering and returning stolen and embezzled cultural items to their rightful owners.  On April 16, 2024, the Met announced that it had repatriated a third millennium BCE Sumerian sculpture to the Republic of Iraq.[1]

        On April 22, 204, Europol led a large-scale raid in Bosnia and Herzegovina on the homes and offices of 23 persons suspected as participants of the “inner circle” of a drug kingpin’s organization.  The raid arose from the arrest of a drug kingpin in November 2022.  Europol hailed the take down of the so-called “super cartel,” which was an alliance of criminal networks that controlled much of Europe’s cocaine trade. Participating in the search of over 40 locations were law enforcement officials from several countries, including the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

        On April 17, 2024, the Peel Regional Police in Canada announced that the U.S. and Canada have arrested nine persons in connection with a theft on April 17, 2023 of a cargo on a flight landing at Pearson International Airport from Zurich, Switzerland.  The cargo contained 6660 bars of .9999% pure gold, weighing 400 kilograms, valued at over $20 million and CAD 2.5 million worth of foreign currency. 

        On April 15, 2024, a directive issued by the Council of the European Union set forth a new policy for member states on unexplained wealth, including conditions for freezing and confiscating assets.[1]  The directive, which cleared both legislative bodies of the E.U. and awaits final signature and formal publication in the Official Journal of the European Union, builds on a 2022 proposal by the European Commission advocating for improved systems for asset tracing, greater power to freeze assets, and an overhauled framework governing confiscation.