A 28-year-old citizen of Dominica and France, has admitted leading a scheme that illegally exported firearms and components from the United States to Dominica.
The agency’s public docket shows markedly fewer administrative actions under Under Secretary Jeffrey Kessler, even as several enormous semiconductor cases pushed assessed penalties higher. Public registers show approximately a 49% decline in annualized administrative docket entries during Mr. Kessler’s tenure compared with the preceding 24 months
Case highlights the compliance risks hidden in third-party shipping forms, trade-show documentation and seemingly routine certifications.
The case is significant not only because it produced FinCEN’s largest-ever BSA penalty against a broker-dealer, but because it shows how unresolved compliance failures can become far more costly when they persist after a prior enforcement action. The record penalty also arrives at a moment of leadership change: FinCEN Director Andrea Gacki, who framed the UBS action as a warning to recidivist institutions, is leaving the agency to become Citigroup’s head of sanctions.
The settlement highlights HMRC’s increasingly public approach to export-control enforcement: Airbus avoided prosecution after voluntarily disclosing the breaches, cooperating with investigators and implementing reforms, but was still named and required to make a substantial payment.
The U.S. Department of Justice will lead the American delegation to an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forestry ministerial in China, where it plans to press member economies for stronger enforcement against illegal timber trafficking.
The U.S. Department of State has barred 13 individuals and one company from participating in transactions governed by the International Traffic in Arms Regulations, citing federal convictions involving illegal arms exports and related conspiracies.
The case shows how routine customs and logistics payments can create major FCPA exposure when brokers disguise bribes as inspection fees. Scoular avoided an independent monitor and received a 25% penalty reduction because of its cooperation and extensive remediation, but its failure to disclose promptly—and deficiencies early in the investigation—limited the credit available.
The Justice Department has secured two more prison sentences against former TD Bank employees, continuing its pattern of prosecuting branch-level personnel involved in money laundering and fraud while no senior bank executives have been criminally charged in connection with the bank’s anti-money-laundering failures.
Rather than relying on a negotiated plea, prosecutors persuaded a jury that technical expertise, engineering services and commercial semiconductor technology can constitute unlawful exports when routed through third-country intermediaries to sanctioned end users.
By creating a permanent trade fraud enforcement section, DOJ is establishing customs and trade fraud as a long-term white-collar enforcement priority.
The ruling is the first federal appellate decision interpreting OFAC’s metals and mining sector determination under Executive Order 14024 and substantially broadens the practical reach of U.S. sanctions. It leaves unresolved key questions over the scope of the regulation, setting the stage for future litigation.
From the start of Tuesday’s House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing, it was clear that the lawmakers and their sole witness, Under Secretary of Commerce Jeffrey Kessler, were having two very …
HM Revenue & Customs’ decision to name Petrofac Facilities Management Limited in a £569,157 Russia sanctions settlement marks a shift in UK enforcement practice that could deter some companies from voluntarily disclosing sanctions and export-control breaches, Ross Denton, senior counsel at Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld in London, said.
A Washington state freight-forwarding manager was sentenced to 18 months in prison for helping route controlled oil and gas equipment from the United States to Russia through intermediary countries, closing a case that prosecutors said showed how export-industry insiders can exploit the global logistics system to evade Russia controls.
The Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security has imposed a $67,500 civil penalty on MAAG Gala, Inc., a Virginia subsidiary of Dover Corporation, resolving allegations that the company failed to report 18 boycott-related requests tied to spare-parts sales to Qatar.
The move gives banks a clearer path to exchange fraud-related customer and transaction information without violating information-sharing restrictions, expanding the practical use of Section 314(b) beyond traditional money-laundering and terrorist-financing cases. It also ties bank compliance programs more directly to Treasury’s campaign against payroll tax fraud, labor exploitation and other illicit finance risks.
A former TD Bank branch teller was sentenced June 10 to 18 months in prison for accepting bribes and helping launder millions of dollars in drug proceeds, the latest conviction arising from the bank’s anti-money-laundering failures.
The Justice Department and FBI seized 13 internet domains allegedly used by suspected Chinese agents to target current and former U.S. security clearance holders and others with access to classified or sensitive government information. The domains posed as consulting companies offering vague paid research or advisory work, while pressuring recruits to provide confidential or “insider” information, according to an affidavit cited by DOJ.
President Trump’s customs order turns importer identity into a central enforcement target, directing CBP to scrutinize who may act as importer of record, what domestic assets or bonds they must maintain, and what ownership and supply-chain information they must disclose. The order does not impose immediate new compliance obligations, but it sets up rulemakings that could sharply narrow foreign importers’ access to informal entry, raise bonding and documentation burdens, and make customs penalties harder to mitigate.
