Global money laundering and terrorist financing (ML/TF) risks just keep on rising, according to the 2023 Public Edition of the Basel AML Index, released on  November 13, 2023. And that has a real impact on people’s lives today – from well-funded terrorist attacks to trillions of dollars flowing out of countries through corruption and organized crime.

On September 29, 2023, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced new agency-wide guidance on the use of INTERPOL Red Notices and Wanted Person Diffusions (WPD). While questions remain about how ICE will interpret and implement this guidance in practice, it marks a major step forward in the sophistication of ICE’s use of INTERPOL communications in law enforcement actions and immigration proceedings.

On October 27, 2023, the fourth Plenary of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) under the Presidency of T. Raja Kumar of Singapore concluded and acted on a number of items, which this article discusses. The FATF granted full membership to Indonesia and continued the suspension of the membership of Russia as a result of its invasion of Ukraine.

On November 8, 2023, the U.K. Supreme Court held that the Danish tax authority can proceed with claims in U.K. courts to recover approximately $1.9 billion in dividend tax refunds that were allegedly fraudulently claimed by cum-ex traders. The appeal concerned the admissibility of claims made by Skaffeforvaltningen (SKAT), the Danish customs and Tax Administration, against Mr. Sanjay Shah and the companies related to him.  Shah and entities (appellants) argued that the claims seek to enforce, directly or indirectly, Danish tax laws or the public laws.  The question was whether “the revenue rule,” which is a common law principle whereby courts on one country should not enforce tax laws of another country, applies to this case.

On November 9, 2023, Manny and Patricia Oliver, parents of the then 16-year-old son, Joaquin, who was killed in the 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida filed a first-of-its kind human rights lawsuit against the U.S. government.  The action requests a ruling from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR)  that U.S. gun policy violates human rights law and cost their son Oliver his right to life.

On October 23, 2023, the National Police of Spain and the Security Service of Ukraine announced that officers had seized gold artifacts belonging to Ukraine, worth more than €60 million ($64 million), in Madrid. Three Spaniards and two Ukrainians, accused of illegally trafficking these objects out of Ukraine in May 2016, have been arrested for money laundering. The 11 pieces were displayed in Kyiv museums in 2009-2013 as millennia-old artifacts from ancient Greco-Scythian culture, although recently some experts have suggested that the pieces are fakes.

On November 3, 2023, the United States Department of Justice announced that Georgian authorities extradited Kristijan Krstic, 48, a Serbian national to the U.S., where he is charged with two separate federal indictments in the Northern District of Texas and the Eastern District of New York for his alleged participation in cryptocurrency and binary options schemes.

On October 27, 2023, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Financial Assets Control (OFAC) imposed a second round of sanctions on key Hamas-linked officials and financial networks.  The sanctions follow the October 7 attacks on Israel.  As set forth in OFAC’s press release and designations, the new round of sanctions targets additional assets in Hamas’s investment portfolio and individuals who are facilitating sanctions evasion by Hamas-affiliated companies.

On October 23, 2023, the United Staes Department of Justice brought a civil forfeiture complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York against the motor yacht Amadea, a 348-foot luxury vessel reportedly worth more than $300 million whose beneficial owner is the sanctioned Russian oligarch Suleiman Kerimov.  In 2022, the Fiji government seized it at the request of the U.S.

On October 24, 2023, the Department of Justice announced the unsealing of a grand jury indictment filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Colombia, charging Vitel’homme Innocent, a Haitian national and leader of the Kraze Barye gang, for engaging in the October 2022 armed hostage taking, in Haiti, of two U.S. citizens, one of whom was killed during the event.