Latest news with #TaskForceKleptoCapture
Euronews
27-03-2025
- Business
- Euronews
Cyprus says it will adopt FBI guidance on tackling financial crime and sanctions evasion
ADVERTISEMENT Authorities in Cyprus have said they will adopt the recommendations of a security initiative developed with help from the US to fight money laundering, sanctions evasion and other financial crimes. The announcement comes after a team from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) was seconded to the Mediterranean island nation for nine months. The FBI team helped to train Cypriot police to identify and prosecute cases of illegal financing and attempts to evade US, EU and UN sanctions imposed on any third country. The US team has also produced a detailed report outlining specific recommendations and proposals including additional staff training, upgrading high-tech systems and amending existing legislation, Cyprus government spokesman Konstantinos Letymbiotis said. Cypriot police officers stand by a police van outside a courthouse complex in Paphos, 5 December, 2022 AP Photo He said Cypriot law enforcement authorities are currently looking to put into use the recommendations to bolster their effectiveness. The joint initiative was set up in 2023 under the Biden administration after Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides invited FBI and Justice Department officials to assist with investigations into allegations that Cypriot financial service providers had helped Russian oligarchs skirt international sanctions. Since then, the Trump administration has disbanded the Biden-era Task Force KleptoCapture, a programme which was aimed at seizing the assets of Russian oligarchs. However, last week, Trump said he is "strongly considering" levying new sanctions and tariffs on Russia unless it stops its war against Ukraine. Related Turkish Cypriot and Greek Cypriot diplomats meet for peace talks with little hope of breakthrough Geneva hosts UN-backed Cyprus peace talks with little hope for breakthrough Christodoulides has pledged to clean up Cyprus' reputation as a money laundering and sanctions evasion hub. As part of those efforts, Cypriot law enforcement agencies received training on financial investigative and forensic accounting techniques both locally and at the International Law Enforcement Academy in the Hungarian capital, Budapest, according to a Cyprus-US joint statement issued last year. The UK said last December it would share information with the Cypriot Ministry of Finance "to disrupt and intercept the flow of illicit finance through Europe to ensure the effectiveness of sanctions on Putin's war machine".
Yahoo
10-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Russian oligarch's superyacht could be auctioned in US
A luxurious superyacht that belonged to Russian billionaire Suleiman Kerimov may be headed to the auction block after a US judge on Monday dismissed a competing claim to ownership of the $300 million vessel. The 348-foot (106-metre) Amadea has been docked in the California port of San Diego after it was seized by US authorities from the sanctioned Russian oligarch. Another wealthy Russian, Eduard Khudainatov, the former head of Russian state oil and gas company Rosneft, claimed in a New York court to be the rightful owner of the vessel but his claim was dismissed by District Judge Dale Ho. According to prosecutors, Khudainatov was a "straw owner" of the Amadea and the true owner was Kerimov, a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin who was sanctioned by the United States in 2018 and again in 2022 after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Following the invasion, the US Justice Department under then-president Joe Biden began seizing the assets of Russian oligarchs close to Putin, an operation known as Task Force KleptoCapture. President Donald Trump disbanded the task force after taking office. The US Congress passed legislation last year that allows for the sale of seized Russian assets, with the proceeds going to provide humanitarian assistance to Ukraine. The Amadea, which has a helipad, pool, jacuzzi and "winter garden" on deck, according to the website was seized in Fiji in April 2022 at the request of US authorities and later transferred to San Diego. cl/mlm
The Guardian
17-02-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
The US led the charge against global corruption. Now Trump is clearing the way for kleptocrats
Five decades ago, the United States was in turmoil. A long and unpopular war was ending in defeat; inflation was high; and American politicians were accused of high-handed and illegal behaviour. If all this sounds remarkably similar to the last few years, that's because it is. But the mid-1970s was different in one crucial respect: how the US responded to it, and particularly how it responded to corruption. Major corporations had been giving bribes to win contracts in South Korea, Italy and Saudi Arabia; US politicians were appalled – and they acted to uphold values other than money. Congress held hearings, examined witnesses and ultimately passed the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) of 1977, which meant that US companies that paid bribes abroad would be prosecuted at home. No other country had any equivalent legislation, and some politicians worried about its effect on business, but US prosecutions under the FCPA continued year after year as a sign that its leaders expected better of its corporations than foreigners did. Until this week, when Donald Trump decided that fighting corruption was getting in the way of making money. 'FCPA enforcement … actively harms American economic competitiveness and, therefore, national security,' the US president stated in an executive order instructing his Department of Justice to stop enforcing the law. This rapid strike was just one part of a blitzkrieg on US efforts against corruption that the White House has launched over the past three weeks. The aid agency USAid supported anti-corruption groups and investigative journalists in dozens of countries; the White House's Task Force KleptoCapture and the Kleptocracy Asset Recovery Initiative led western efforts to find wealth owned by the Kremlin or its allies; the Foreign Agents Registration Act brought transparency to who was funding US lobbyists; the FBI's Foreign Influence Task Force sought to unearth infiltration by the Kremlin and other regimes. All of that is gone, as is the corruption case against New York's mayor, Eric Adams, who was accused of taking bribes and soliciting funding from overseas. US foreign policy is far from perfect, and its catastrophic mistakes in the Middle East and elsewhere are behind many of the world's most intractable crises. However, it is hard to overstate how central Washington has been to global efforts to tackle corruption, financial crime and kleptocracy. It invented the idea of fighting money laundering; its sanctions against Kremlin elites went further and faster than European equivalents; its prosecutions against money laundering by banks, crypto exchanges and others have been more ambitious than ours; its indictments against corrupt foreign officials have achieved better results. Trump's unilateral decision to abandon the battlefield is devastating, not least because of the risk that European countries will now surrender too. It is imperative this does not happen. Putin's kleptocratic regime still poses a huge risk to our continent's security; organised criminal groups are spreading, and even trying to reclaim lost ground in Sicily; fraudsters are stealing more money every year. Our law enforcement agencies are struggling to handle the challenge as it is. If we stop cooperating with each other, we'll be overwhelmed. David Lammy, the foreign secretary, has made fighting corruption central to his time in office, and the UK needs to step up where the US is stepping back, not least to push back against the inevitable demands from Trump's allies in Europe that we follow his lead. Lammy has proposed a summit of international financial centres to discuss tackling corruption, and he should move ahead with that as a matter of urgency. The political focus on irregular immigrants has led to specialist anti-corruption officers being moved to tackle immigration. They should be moved back. The UK should support organisations whose future is imperilled by the end of US funding. Groups like the Anti-Corruption Action Centre in Kyiv do crucial work pushing for new standards in the battle against bribery in Ukraine; networks like the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project do indispensable journalistic work investigating the misdeeds of the rich and crooked in eastern Europe. Without them, kleptocrats can operate without scrutiny, and banks' compliance departments would have no idea whether to accept them as clients or not. There are dozens of other organisations doing equally important work that will close or retreat because of Trump's decision to cut USAid funding, and we could save them. There is an obvious irony here. In the decades when the US was prosecuting its companies for paying bribes abroad, the UK was establishing a network of tax havens, and selling anonymous shell companies, so as to profit from their corruption. Not only did we ignore bribe-taking, when British prosecutors tried to bring a case against BAE Systems for kickbacks in Saudi arms contracts, our government stepped in to shut it down. It was prosecuted in the US instead. City of London institutions' business strategy for decades was to solicit money their US rivals would not touch, whether it came from Russian oligarchs, Nigerian kleptocrats or Middle Eastern bullies. Over the last decade that has started to change, with successive governments finally bringing transparency to offshore-owned property, beginning to give adequate funding to law enforcement agencies, and trying to restrain the worst excesses of our overseas territories. Anyone tempted to reverse these improvements in the interest of either appeasing Trump or chasing illusory economic growth should remember the logic behind that pioneering US anti-bribery legislation. 'Bribes and kickbacks may bolster sales in the short run,' said Senator Frank Church of Idaho at a committee hearing almost exactly 50 years ago. 'Ultimately, they create the conditions which bring to power political forces that are no friends of ours.' We are never going to be better at corruption than Vladimir Putin or Xi Jinping, nor should we try. Our moral, political, and financial interests are all aligned: Britain will only thrive in a world governed by the rule of law; a world without corruption is better in every way. The fact that the US has forgotten this makes it all the more important that we do not. Oliver Bullough is the author of Butler to the World: How Britain Became the Servant of Tycoons, Tax Dodgers, Kleptocrats and Criminals, and Moneyland: Why Thieves and Crooks Now Rule the World and How to Take It Back
Yahoo
07-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
DOJ disbands foreign influence task force, unit tasked with seizing Russian oligarchs' asset
Attorney General Pam Bondi disbanded a Biden-era initiative targeting Russian oligarchs as well as another designed to combat foreign influence. Task Force KleptoCapture was created in the wake of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, coordinating a global effort to seize yachts and what President Biden referred to as 'ill-begotten gains' of Russian oligarchs. Bondi also disbanded the Foreign Influence Task Force, an initiative created under the first Trump administration designed to battle foreign influence in elections. The task force was designed to battle growing 'foreign malign influence efforts' seeking to flood U.S. elections with disinformation. In doing so, Bondi pushed to narrow charges under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) to 'instances of alleged conduct similar to more traditional espionage by foreign government actors.' According to Bondi, the move 'end[s] risks of further weaponization and abuses of prosecutorial discretion,' while freeing the department to 'address more pressing priorities.' Combined, the two directives represent a scaling back of Justice Department efforts to target Russian interference. Kleptocapture seized millions in Russian yachts and other properties held outside of Russia. Last year the Justice Department also brought FARA violations against two employees of RT, formerly Russia Today, after they partnered with a U.S. media company to pay influencers to promote Russian narratives. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
The Hill
07-02-2025
- Politics
- The Hill
DOJ disbands foreign influence task force, unit tasked with seizing Russian oligarchs' asset
Attorney General Pam Bondi disbanded a Biden-era initiative targeting Russian oligarchs as well as another designed to combat foreign influence. Task Force KleptoCapture was created in the wake of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, coordinating a global effort to seize yachts and what President Biden referred to as 'ill-begotten gains' of Russian oligarchs. Bondi also disbanded the Foreign Influence Task Force, an initiative created under the first Trump administration designed to battle foreign influence in elections. The task force was designed to battle growing 'foreign malign influence efforts' seeking to flood U.S. elections with disinformation. In doing so, Bondi pushed to narrow charges under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) to 'instances of alleged conduct similar to more traditional espionage by foreign government actors.' According to Bondi, the move 'end[s] risks of further weaponization and abuses of prosecutorial discretion,' while freeing the department to 'address more pressing priorities.' Combined, the two directives represent a scaling back of Justice Department efforts to target Russian interference. Kleptocapture seized millions in Russian yachts and other properties held outside of Russia. Last year the Justice Department also brought FARA violations against two employees of RT, formerly Russia Today, after they partnered with a U.S. media company to pay influencers to promote Russian narratives.
