On April 22, 2025, Secretary of State Marco Rubio proposed a significant reform of the U.S. State Department that would close the Office of Global Criminal Justice (GCJ) and the Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations (CSO). The proposal will also close the office dealing with refugees and migration.[1]

On April 15, 2025, shortly after a Peruvian court sentenced former Peruvian President Ollanta Humala and his wife, Nadine Heredia, to 15 years in prison for money laundering, Brazil granted Ms. Heredia diplomatic asylum.

On April 19, 2025, around 1:00 a.m. on Saturday, the Supreme Court released a dissent by two of its conservative justices and issued an unsigned order directing the Trump administration not to remove any member of the putative class of detainees from the United States until further order of the court.[1

On April 21, 2025, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) released a new report on a global expansion of East and Southeast Asian organized crime groups. The report concentrates on an emerging phenomenon: amidst heightened awareness and enforcement action, Asian crime syndicates are expanding operations deeper into many of the most remote, vulnerable, underprepared parts of the region — and beyond.

On April 10, 2025, in an unsigned order, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ordered the government to try to return a Salvadoran national and U.S. permanent resident, Abrego Garcia, whom it had wrongly deported to a terrorist prison in El Salvador. However, the Court also observed that the courts may not have the authority to require the executive branch to return him. After the order, U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis attempted to force the administration to communicate its efforts, or lack thereof, to facilitate Abrego Garcia’s release. Instead, the administration made an emergency appeal and request for a stay, which the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit quickly and unanimously rejected.[1]

On March 31, 2025, the United States sanctioned six Chinese and Hong Kong officials in response to acts of transnational repression.[1] Transnational repression is “any action taken by a foreign government or an agent of a foreign government involving the transgression of national borders through physical, digital, or analog means in order to intimidate, silence coerce, harass, or harm members of diaspora and exile communities… in order to prevent the exercise of their human rights.”[2]

Late last month, Irish and Spanish authorities thwarted the efforts of one of Ireland’s most notorious and high-level criminal networks, “The Family,” based in West Dublin. The operation consisted of two coordinated raids led by An Garda Síochána in Ireland and the Guardia Civil in Spain. Authorities arrested twelve suspects, between the ages of thirty and sixty, who are alleged to have participated in a drug-trafficking operation that involved transporting drugs between Ireland and Spain. Irish authorities originally arrested five men on Monday, March 24, and later detained the sixth man in Dublin. The other six suspects were arrested in Spain. 

On April 7, 2025, Justice Roberts, in a per curiam opinion, ruled that the Trump administration could appeal and then vacated the Temporary Restraining Orders issued by Judge Boasberg. The opinion held that the detainees are entitled to notice and opportunity to be heard “appropriate to the nature of the case.”[1]  Meanwhile, on April 16, Judge Boasberg issued an order finding probable cause to find the Government in criminal contempt.[2]

In April 2025, the United States and Russia conducted their second high-profile prisoner swap since the beginning of President Donald Trump’s current term, exchanging Russian American ballerina Ksenia Karelina for dual German Russian national Arthur Petrov. Karelina, who had been sentenced to 12 years in a Russian penal colony for making a $50 donation to a U.S.-based charity supporting Ukraine, was designated by the U.S. government as wrongfully detained in October 2024.[1] Petrov, meanwhile, was accused of conspiring to smuggle sensitive U.S. microelectronics to Russia’s military industrial sector in violation of export controls imposed after Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine.[2]

On April 14, 2025, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced the transfer of 13 Mexican nationals serving prison sentences for drug distribution-related convictions in the U.S. to Mexico.[1] On April 9, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement removed Tomas Jesus Yarrington Ruvalcaba, 68, a citizen of Mexico and former governor of the state of Tamaulipas, who was wanted by Mexican authorities.[2]