On April 17, 2019, the United States government announced new sanctions against Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua. While giving a speech in Miami, National Security Advisor John Bolton announced that the Trump administration is re-imposing limits on the amount of money Cuban Americans can send to relatives in Cuba and ordering new restrictions on U.S. citizen, nonfamily travel to Cuba. Also on April 17, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the administration will remove restrictions that have prevented lawsuits from U.S. citizens seeking compensation for property expropriated by the Cuban governments when it came to power in 1958.

On March 20, 2019, Trial Chamber III of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) sentenced Radovan Karadžić to life in prison on appeal, an increase from his original 40 year sentence. Karadžić will not be able to appeal this verdict and the President of the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals will decide the location of the imprisonment. Though the trial – which began in October of 2009 following Karadžić’s July 2008 arrest – has finally come to a close, feelings of justice are lacking.

On April 17, 2019, the European parliament adopted a resolution approving a new Directive intended to facilitate law enforcement authorities' access to and use of financial information held in other jurisdictions within the EU for investigations related to terrorism and other serious crimes. The Directive grants competent authorities direct access to bank account information contained in centralized registries set up in each Member State, according to the provisions of the Fifth AML Directive. The new instrument also aims to strengthen domestic and cross-border exchange of information between EU Member States' competent authorities, including law enforcement authorities and financial intelligence units, as well as with Europol. Financial information represents a valuable instrument for law enforcement authorities in the fight against crime and terrorism. As a basis for financial investigations, in particular in the area of money laundering and terrorist financing, financial data facilitates the identification of criminals and terrorists, as well as the tracing of proceeds of crime in view of their freezing or confiscation, and may serve as evidence in criminal proceedings.

On April 17, 2019, Ying Lin pleaded guilty in the U.S. District Court in Brooklyn, New York to serving as an agent for the People’s Republic of China without notifying the Attorney General, by working at the direction and control of military officers assigned to the Permanent Mission of the PRC to the United Nations. Lin, a former manager with an international air carrier headquartered in the PRC (the Air Carrier) improperly facilitated the transport of packages from John F. Kennedy International Airport to the PRC aboard Air Carrier flights at the behest of the PRC military officers and in violation of Transportation Security Administration (TSA) regulations.

On March 28, 2019, Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen M. Nielsen signed, on behalf of the United States, a Memorandum of Cooperation (MOC) on border security cooperation in Central America. Almost simultaneously, U.S. President Donald Trump said that he was planning on cutting U.S. assistance to the three countries and has threatened to close the border with Mexico. HSA Secretary Nielsen met with Guatemalan Minister of Government Enrique Degenhart, Honduran Security Minister Julian Pacheco, and Salvadoran Minister of Justice and Public Security Mauricio Landaverde. The MOC – the first ever multilateral compact on border security – has the goal of improved synchronized cooperation between the countries to strengthen border security, prevent the formation of new migrant caravans, and address the root causes of the migration crisis through synchronized efforts.  It touches on the following:  human trafficking and smuggling; combating transnational criminal organizations and gangs; expanding information and intelligence sharing; and strengthening air, land, and maritime border security.

On March 28, 2019, the U.S. Department of State released the 2019 edition of the annual International Narcotics Control Strategy Report (INCSR) to Congress. This two-volume, Congressionally-mandated report assesses foreign governments’ efforts to reduce illicit drug production, trafficking, and use, as well as their work to counter drug trafficking-related money laundering. The INCSR was first published in 1986, and this edition covers calendar year 2018. This year’s INCSR stresses that the synthetic opioid-fueled drug crisis still gripping the United States represents a crisis across the globe. It also points to the continued growth in overseas production of cocaine as a problem that requires urgent international action. The report highlights not only increases in trafficking and abuse of fentanyl and other deadly synthetic ethamphetamine, but rampant heroin production in Afghanistan as well.

On April 11, 2019 WikiLeaks co-founder Julian Assange was arrested at the Ecuadorian embassy in London. Upon Ecuador’s invitation, British authorities entered the embassy and detained Assange, charging him with failure to surrender to the court in a previous case. Yet British authorities eventually commented that they arrested Assange on the United States’ behalf. The U.S., who unsealed an indictment against Assange the same day that he was arrested in the UK, is pursuing his extradition for his efforts to disclose classified information that the government believes would have injured the U.S. But even this potential outcome faces complications. Prior to confirming Assange’s exit from the embassy, President Moreno of Ecuador insisted that the UK refuse to extradite Assange to a country in which he could face torture or the death penalty as a form of punishment. The UK confirmed this agreement in writing. Although Assange would only face a maximum sentence of five years if convicted of the U.S. charges against him, this condition nevertheless complicates a case that already crosses multiple borders and fosters intense emotional polarization.

On April 12, 2019, Pre-Trial Chamber II of the International Criminal Court (ICC) unanimously rejected the request of the Prosecutor to proceed with an investigation for alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes, on the territory of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. On November 20, 2017, the Prosecutor submitted the “Request for authorization of an investigation pursuant to Article 15” (the 'Request'), together with 14 annexes, in which the Pre-Trial Chamber is requested to authorize the commencement of an investigation into the Situation in the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan in relation to alleged crimes committed on the territory of Afghanistan in the period since May 1, 2003. The Request also extended to other alleged crimes that have a nexus to the armed conflict in Afghanistan, are sufficiently linked to the situation, and were committed on the territory of other States Parties in the period since July 1, 2002.

At its 17^th sitting held on April 11, 2019, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) adopted Resolution and Recommendation on the international fight against organized crime, corruption, and money laundering. The debate as well as the Resolution and Recommendation were based on a comprehensive Report prepared by the Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights.The action undertaken by the Assembly and its organs was prompted by the “Global Laundromat” money laundering scheme, exposed by investigative journalists working for the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) and used to transfer at least US$21 billion between 2010 and 2014 from shell companies in the Russian Federation to banks in 96 countries around the world.Another triggering mechanism was what has since become known as the “Azerbaijani Laundromat”, also exposed by the OCCRP (and others), which describe it as a “a complex money-laundering operation and slush fund that handled $2.9 billion over a two-year period through four shell companies registered in the UK.”

On April 10, 2019 the U.S. Department of Justice announced the public release of a white paper on the Clarifying Lawful Overseas Use of Data Act (CLOUD Act). Enacted in March 2018, the Act updates the legal framework for how law enforcement authorities may request electronic evidence required to protect public safety from service providers while respecting privacy and foreign sovereignty. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein promises the DOJ will be proactive in working, both in the U.S. and abroad, to promote greater understanding and appreciation of what the CLOUD Act does. The CLOUD Act has two distinct parts.  First, the Act authorizes the U.S. to enter into bilateral agreements to facilitate the ability of trusted foreign partners to obtain the electronic evidence they required to fight serious crime. To qualify under the Act, a partner country must adhere to baseline rule-of-law, privacy, and civil liberties protections.  Through bilateral agreements, each country would agree to lower the legal barriers that prevent their communication service providers from complying with qualifying lawful orders for electronic data issued by the other country.  By lowering legal barriers, each country could serve its legal process, such as search warrants, directly on the providers of the other country, significantly increasing the speed and efficiency compared with existing methods of transferring electronic evidence.