On October 27, 2022, Global Financial Integrity issued a report; Made in China: China’s Role in Transnational Crime and Illicit Financial Flows By Channing Mavrellis & John Cassara.  Simultaneously, GFI also held a webinar, discussing the report. This article summarizes the highlights the report.

On October 18, 2022, a Serbian man identified by authorities only by the initials S.S. was arrested by Hungarian authorities.[1] S.S. was arrested on an international arrest warrant filed by the Kosovan authorities for suspected participation in criminal events that occurred from March 26 to May 28, 1999.[2] The alleged criminal activity took place during a bloody war in 1998-1999 that ended with NATO intervention.[3] Ten Thousand ethnic Albanians were killed during the conflict and more than One Thousand Six Hundred are still missing.[4]

On October 20, 2022, the Ugandan Standards, Utilities, and Wildlife Court meted out a sentence of life in prison to Pascal Ochiba, who was convicted of illegal possession of wildlife products, including two pieces of elephant ivory weighing a total of 9.55 kilograms.  The sentence was Uganda’s strongest punishment ever for wildlife violations.[1]

 On September 30, 2022, Chief Judge F. Dennis Saylor of the U.S. District Court in Boston dismissed the Mexican government’s lawsuit against U.S. gun manufacturers and a wholesale distributor, seeking to hold them liable for alleged illegal trafficking of guns to Mexico.[1]  On October 10, the Mexican government filed a new lawsuit against gun distributors in the U.S. District Court in Arizona.

On October 25, the National Financial Prosecutor’s Office of France and Credit Suisse reached a settlement, in which Credit Suisse has agreed to pay €238 million ($235 million) to the French government in exchange for settling potential charges of aggravated tax fraud laundering, illegal solicitation of clients, and related charges.[1]

On October 18, 2022, Lafarge S.A. (Lafarge), a global building materials manufacturer headquartered in France, and Lafarge Cement Syria, S.A. (LCS), a Lafarge subsidiary headquartered in Syria, pleaded guilty to a one-count criminal information  charging it with conspiring to furnish material support and resources to the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) and the al-Nusrah Front (ANF), both U.S.-designated foreign terrorist organizations.[1]  Following the guilty pleas, United States District Judge William F. Kuntz, II sentenced the defendants to terms of probation and to pay financial penalties, including criminal fines of $90.78 million and forfeiture of $687 million, totaling $777.78 million.[2]

On October 20, 2022, after Mexico extradited him, Jaime Gonzalez Duran, a Mexican national, had his initial appearance in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to face international drug charges.

On October 20, 2022, Anne Sacoolas, a United States citizen who fled Britain in 2019 after her car struck and killed a 19-year-old British motorcyclist in England, pled guilty to causing the death of the victim Harry Dunn by careless driving.[1]

On October 18, 2022, the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine has released and submitted its report to the UN General Assembly.[1]

On October 24, 2022, the United States Department of Justice announced three separate cases brought in the U.S. Attorneys’ Offices for the Eastern District of New York and the District of new Jersey against 13 individuals, including members of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) security and intelligence apparatus and their agents, for alleged efforts to unlawfully exert influence in the U.S. for the benefit of the government of the PRC.[1]