On November 8, 2019, the Joint Chiefs of Global Tax Enforcement (J5) brought together investigators, cryptocurrency experts, and data scientists to identify individuals who are the most egregious tax offenders in the world.[1]  This article discusses the J5 meeting, as well as the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) initiatives to investigate and prevent cryptocurrency crimes.

On November 13, 2019 Anguilla’s Attorney General Dwight Horsford said an international arrest warrant will be issued for 44-year-old Scott Hapgood who refused to return to Anguilla to face the court on a manslaughter charge in the killing of a hotel worker.[1] Hapgood is charged with killing a 27-year-old employee of the luxury Malliouhana Hotel, Kenny Mitchel, during a confrontation while Hapgood, his wife and two children vacationed in Anguilla in  April of this year.[2]

Human trafficking and labor servitude are occurring globally in the rapidly expanding marijuana cultivation “industry” in which the murky status between legal and illegal product entering the consumer supply chain allows transborder criminal organizations to capitalize on gaps in law enforcement and immigration laws.  Over the last several years, grow operations concealed in non-descript settings—suburban houses and warehouses in industrial areas—have been found throughout Great Britain, Ireland, and Western Europe.  With those discoveries, authorities have found numerous instances of undocumented immigrants, including children, toiling over the valuable crops while subjected to potentially fatal health risks from constant exposure to chemicals in poorly-ventilated rooms, malnutrition, constant illness, and the looming threat of fires and electrocution.

On November 14, 2019, two Chinese nationals and former executives of the Chinese subsidiary of Herbalife Nutrition Ltd. (HLF.N) (“Herbalife”) were charged with paying bribes, circumventing internal accounting controls of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and other offenses.

On October 21, 2019, during a case management hearing at Westminster Magistrates Court, District Judge Vanessa Baraitser denied Mark Summers’ request, counsel for Julian Assange, to delay the extradition proceedings three months.  The next case management hearing will occur on December 19. The full extradition hearing will start February 25, 2020.

On November 12, 2019, The United States Department of Justice (DOJ) announced that Antigua and Barbuda extradited to the United States the former chief of its Financial Services Regulatory Commission to face charges for his alleged role in connection with the Stanford International Bank (SIB) $7 billion investment fraud scheme.

On November 14, 2019, the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) announced Mexico’s extradition of Jose Guadalupe Diaz Diaz, aka “Zorro,” an alleged shooter and member of the Barrio Azteca (BA), a transnational border gang allied with the Juarez Cartel, to the United States on charges related to the March 2010 U.S. Consulate murders in Juarez, Mexico.

 On November 18, 2019, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York announced the arrest of University of Miami Professor Bruce Bagley on charges of conspiracy to commit money laundering and money laundering.[1]  The indictment alleges that Bagley participated in a conspiracy to launder the proceeds of  graft and corruption in connection with public works projects in Venezuela.[2]

On November 11, a court in The Hague ruled that the Dutch state must actively help repatriate 56 children of mothers who joined the Islamic State of Iraq (ISIS), but it does not have the same obligation to their mothers.[1] The children range from ages of two weeks old to 12 years old and are currently living in poor conditions in camps in northern Syria. The decision came in a case filed by five lawyers on behalf of 23 mothers and their children in hopes of returning to their homes in the Netherlands. All of the women in the case are Dutch citizens who ventured to Iraq and Syria to support the Islamic State. The Netherlands estimates there are 15 men, 35 women, and 90 children with Dutch nationality in refugee camps in Syria and Iraq.[2]

As of November 7, 2019, British authorities have identified all 39 of the human trafficking victims found dead in the back of a lorry in Essex on October 23, 2019. While Essex police initially identified the victims as Chinese, it has since been determined that the deceased were Vietnamese nationals.^[1]  They include eight women and 31 men.  The names of the victims have not yet been released to the public, as the Vietnamese embassy and police are in the process of contacting the families of the dead. Tim Smith, an assistant chief constable in Essex, said, “This is an important step in the investigation and enables us to work with our Vietnamese police colleagues to support the families of those victims.”^[2]