Italian authorities have arrested four people in Palermo on charges of mafia-linked external competition, extortion, money laundering, self-laundering—where the same person commits both the original crime and the subsequent money laundering—and fraudulent asset deals.
Fraud is involved in around 20 percent of the world’s online sales each year, netting criminals trillions of dollars, according to a report from a national security research group.
Their trading monopoly, built on bribery and alleged smuggling, was exposed. But that hasn’t stopped the secretive Khabibula Abdukadyr and his relatives. With new political alliances and projects worth billions around the world, they’re more powerful than ever.
One of the most effective ways to hide your ownership of valuable assets is to get someone – or something – to stand in as your “proxy.” Bad actors make regular use of these representatives to stash illicit wealth and move it around the world.
While Inna Yashchyshyn visited Mar-a-Lago and schmoozed with former President Trump and his inner circle, she was being pursued by a senior member of Russian organized crime.
Criminals have laundered at least US$4 billion-worth of illicit crypto proceeds using cross-chain technologies since 2020, new research by blockchain analysis firm Elliptic reveals.
Georgy Bedzhamov, wanted in Russia over a high-profile embezzlement case, used the law firm Demetrios A. Demetriades LLC, known as Dadlaw, to conceal his assets and disguise transfers. Company records and contracts also show how he moved tens of millions of dollars around the world around the same time his sister embezzled billions of dollars from their bank, Vneshprombank.