On August 18, 2020, U.S. Attorney General William P. Barr sent a letter to Priti Patel, British Home Department Secretary, promising that, if the British government shares evidence with the U.S. by October 15, 2020, the U.S. will prosecute two notorious British Islamic detainees accused of participating in the torture and beheadings of Western hostages, without imposing the death penalty in the event they are convicted. If Britain does not transfer the evidence by October 15, then Barr promises to transfer them to Iraq for prosecution in the Iraqi justice system.[1]

When forty-seven Kenyans flew from Yemen into the Moi airport in late July of 2020,  passengers on the plane were unaware that Mansur Mohamed Surer, an alleged smuggler of endangered wildlife, sat among them.[1] Authorities speculate that Surer was using this route to return to Uganda, the hub of his operations, when agents using Yemeni intelligence, apprehended Surer as he stepped off the plane.[2] They immediately searched his bags and held him with airport police. He was subsequently turned over to Interpol Nairobi. Because the United States Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) had been investigating the suspect, Surer will be extradited to New York.

On August 18, 2020, the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) delivered a long-overdue judgment in the Ayyash et al. case concerning the February 14, 2005 attack in Beirut that killed former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri and 21 others, and injured 226 more. The four accused were tried in absentia: Messrs Salim Jamil Ayyash, Hassan Habib Merhi, Hussein Hassan Oneissi, and Assad Hassan Sabra.

INTERPOL’s Cooperation Against ‘Ndrangheta (I-CAN) has rounded up six fugitives in Albania, Argentina, and Costa Rica, following intelligence tips gathered in an operation targeting the ‘Ndrangheta in November 2019. INTERPOL’s website reported the news on July 23, 2020. 

On August 14, 2020, the Manhattan State Court arraigned Trevor William Forrest, a/k/a “Shaikh Abdullah Faisal”, a/k/a/ “Shaikh Faisal,” 56, after his extradition from Jamaica the prior day. The charges are that he used his public profile and personal network to recruit and provide support to those seeking to commit acts of violence and terrorism against others.[1]

On August 14, 2020, the Justice Department (DOJ) announced the successful disruption of a multimillion dollar fuel shipment by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), a designated foreign terrorist organization that was on its way to Venezuela.  The move represents the government’s largest seizure of fuel shipments from Iran.[1]  Also on August 14, the Security Council announced  its failure to adopt a draft resolution aimed at extending arms-related restrictions on Iran, set to expire in October under resolution 2231 (2015).[2]

On August 13, 2020, the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) announced the dismantling of three terrorist financing cyber-enabled campaigns, involving the al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas’s military wing, al-Qaeda, and Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS). Three forfeiture complaints set forth the coordinated operation and a criminal complaint, which was unsealed on August 13 in the District of Columbia. The actions represent the government’s largest-ever seizure of cryptocurrency in the terrorism context.[1]

                On August 6, 2020, Dr. Saad Aljabri, a former top Saudi intelligence official, filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court in the District of Columbia, accusing Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of sending a team of agents to Canada to kill him, as well as arresting and holding his children and brother in an effort to force him to return to Saudi Arabia.[1]

                On August 6, 2020, the United States Department of Justice brought two civil forfeiture complaints in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, charging that funds misappropriated from PrivatBank in Ukraine were used to buy commercial real estate in Louisville, Kentucky, and Dallas, Texas. As a result, the suits say they are subject to forfeiture for violating federal money laundering laws.[1]

                On July 29, 2020, the Senate Permanent Investigative Subcommittee issued a report detailing how a prominent family of Russian oligarchs, sanctioned by the U.S. since Russia’s annexation of the Crimea, has used the opacity of the U.S. art industry to evade sanctions.