On March 28, 2022, the Honduras Supreme Court authorized the extradition of former president Juan Orlando Hernandez to the United States to face drug trafficking and related corruption charges.

Several news outlets recently reported that wealthy Russian nationals and crime organizations are paying private individuals a commission to use their personal checking and savings accounts in order to launder money through Colombian banks.  This illegal money transfer, known as “smurfing,” involves depositing money into the banking accounts of “humble and middle-class” people.  The accounts are then accessed through ATMs in Bogotá[1] and Medellín.  The small transactions do not require the completion of banking control documents and are difficult to detect.[2]  Moving money in this manner gives wealthy Russians with ties to organized crime a work-around to the SWIFT (Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications) banking communication network[3] after the United States, Canada, the EU and the UK removed Russian banks from SWIFT on February 26, 2022, in retaliation for Vladimir Putin’s invasion of The Ukraine.

The conflict in Ukraine has had significant consequences in INTERPOL.  Ukraine has disconnected from the INTERPOL network due to its fear of Russia’s misuse of INTERPOL’s channels.  On March 10, INTERPOL announced that the Russian National Central Bureau (NCB) can no longer send diffusions directly.  On March 25, 2022, INTERPOL announced that it deployed an Operational Support Team to Moldova in response to the ongoing conflict in Ukraine.

On March 22, 2022, the United States and Canada high-level law enforcement officials met in Washington, D.C. to implement the commitment set forth in President Biden and Prime Minister Trudeau’s February 2021 Roadmap for a Renewed U.S.-Canada Partnership to re-establish the Cross-Border Crime Forum (CBCF).  The meeting included the Attorney General of the United States, Merrick Garland, and the U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security, Alejandro N. Mayorkas.  Representing Canada were its Minister of Justice and Attorney General, David Lametti, and Minister of Public Safety, Marco Medicino.  The meeting discussed how to increase collaboration between the two countries to counter transnational crime and make their respective communities safer.[1]   

On March 24, 2022, the Department of Justice unsealed two indictments against four Russian nationals, working in conjunction with the Russian government, with attempting, supporting, and conducting computer intrusions that targeted the global energy sector between 2012 and 2018.  In total, these hacking campaigns targeted thousands of computers at hundreds of companies and organizations across approximately 135 countries.

On March 25, 2022, law enforcement authorities froze € 120 million worth of assets connected to the investigation of a money laundering case in Lebanon.  The authorities seized five properties in Germany and France as well as bank accounts.  The EU Agency for Criminal Justice Cooperation (Eurojust) supported the judicial cooperation by establishing a joint investigation team (JIT) and organizing three coordination meetings.[1]

On March 29, 2022, Carlos Roman Polit Faggioni (Polit) made his initial appearance in the U.S. District Court in Miami, on charges he allegedly engaged in a scheme to use the U.S. financial system to launder money to promote and conceal an alleged illegal bribery scheme in Ecuador.[1]

On March 16, 2022, at an  extraordinary meeting, the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe adopted Resolution CM/Res (2022)2  deciding, in the context of the procedure launched under Article 8 of the Statute of the Council of Europe, that the Russian Federation ceases to be a member of the Council of Europe as of that day.[1]

On March 22, 2022, the OECD issued a public consultation document involving a new world tax transparency framework to furnish the reporting and exchange of information with regard to crypto-assets and proposed amendments to the Common Reporting Standard (CRS) for the automatic exchange of financial account information between countries.  The consultation has the goal to inform the decisions of policy makers on the potential adoption of any such framework and its related components.

On March 21, 2022, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, speaking at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington D.C., declared that Myanmar’s military has committed genocide against the Rohingya minority.   At present the Holocaust Museum features an exhibition on the atrocities against Burma’s Rohingya population.