Hello, and welcome to episode 182 of the Financial Crime Weekly Podcast, I am Chris Kirkbride. In this episode, OFAC settled a penalty with Fracht FWO Inc. for violations involving Venezuela and Iran, sanctioned a Chinese chemical firm and executives for trafficking synthetic opioids, and designated Palestinian human rights organizations over alleged targeting of Israel by the ICC. OFAC also reclassified Ecuadorian criminal groups as transnational terrorist organisations. Internationally, Australia imposed sanctions on Russian officials for civil society repression and Navalny's death, while the UK revoked a licence allowing Evraz North America to operate under sanctions and sanctioned Russian actors involved in the forced deportation of Ukrainian children. The UK government also launched a sanctions survey to inform future policy. On the money laundering front, the Financial Action Task Force warned countries to crack down on shell companies, and OSCE enhanced Turkmenistan's capacity to combat money laundering and terrorism financing. For bribery and corruption, GRECO urged Slovakia to accelerate anti-corruption reforms. Other financial crime topics included an IMF warning about tech-savvy criminals outpacing regulators and a proposed privacy-preserving compliance framework for stablecoins. Finally, cybercrime saw a major cyberattack halt Jaguar Land Rover production in the UK.

A transcript of this podcast, with links to the stories, will be available at www.crimes.financial.