On March 1, 2012, the Spanish Ministry of Finance issued its Annual Plan of Tax and Customs.  It focused on the main goals:

1. Investigation of tax and customs fraud;
2. Control of fraud in the collection phase;
3. Collaboration with tax administration of the autonomous communities (i.e., other Spanish states).

The plan will target the dismantling of the underground economy which imports and sells goods from third countries, especially Asia.

On  March 1, 2012, Pre-Trial Chamber I of the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued a warrant of arrest against the Sudanese Minister of Defense, Mr Abdel Raheem Muhammad Hussein (“Hussein”) for 41 counts of crimes against humanity and war crimes allegedly committed in the context of the situation in Darfur (Sudan). Mr Hussein was  formerly the  Minister of the Interior and former Sudanese President’s Special Representative inDarfur.

INTERPOL has recently announced that it helped coordinate a multi-continent operation which resulted in the arrest of 25 individuals linked to the hacking group Anonymous.  Police operating in Chile, Argentina, Colombia, and Spain, cooperating though INTERPOL's Latin American Working Group of Experts on IT Crime, conducted arrests in 15 cities across South American and Europe.  Anonymous has raised its profile in recent months by attacking several corporate and government websites, including that of the Colombian Ministry of Defense.  In response to the arrests, the INTERPOL website was temporarily taken down by Anonymous, but it was quickly restored.

British authorities have accused Dmitry Kovtun of murdering former KGB officer Alexander Litvinenko at a London hotel in May of 2007.  Mr. Kovtun is the second supsect named in the unusual death of Mr. Litvinenko, who was killed through exposure to radioactive polonium.  According to the Crown Prosecution Service, Mr. Kovtun, working with Andrei Lugovoi, slipped the radioactive element into Mr. Litvinenko's tea.  The Crown Prosecution Service has requested Mr. Kovtun's extradition from Russia, though the Russian government has showed no signs that it will cooperate.  Mr. Lugovoi, who has already been charged with the murder, is a minor celebrity in Russia due to the extradition request, and a sitting member of the Duma. Both men were former members of the KGB.

On February 27, 2012, Senator Karl Levin introduced as an amendment to the transportation bill the Cut Unjustified Tax Loopholes Act.

Introduced as SA 1741,. Sen.  Levin (for himself and Sen. Conrad) submitted the  amendment intended to be proposed to the bill S. 1813, to reauthorize Federal-aid highway and highway safety construction programs, and for other purposes; which was ordered to lie on the table; as follows:

On February 29, 2012, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) issued an advance notice of proposed rulemaking (ANPRM) to solicit public comment on a wide range of questions pertaining to the possible application of an explicit customer due diligence (CDD) obligation on financial institutions, including a requirement for financial institutions to identify beneficial ownership of their accountholders.

On February 27, 2012, former governor of the Nigerian state of Delta pled guilty in a UK court to ten countrs of money laundering and conspiracy to defraud.  The British prosecutor accused him of stealing US $250 million over an eight-year period from public funds of Delta.   

In 2010, he was arrested in Dubai and later extradited to the U.K.

The conviction will be seen as a victory for better governance and integrity policies and as a step towards preventing and recovery stolen public assets.

General Eugenio Vides Casanova, the former defense minister of El Salvador, may be deported from the United States, a U.S. judge ruled this week.  Mr. Casanova is accused of torturing four Americans and killing two others during the early 1980s.  A law passed in 2004 allows the government to refuse refuge to human rights abusers; Mr. Casanova now faces deportation under this law.  The ultimate decision to deport Mr. Casanova will be reached at a later date, now that the legal barriers are gone.

On February 23, the Office of Foreign Assets Control, US Department of Treasury, added to its Specially Designated Nationals list of sanctioned persons the largest organized-crime group in Japana, Yamaguchi-gumi, its reputed "godfather," Kenichi Shinoda, and its "deputy godfather," Kiyoshi Takayama.

For the announcement and other persons just added to the list see the link below.

The new listing illustrates how the SDN list contains entities as well as individuals and alleged organized crime persons as well as alleged terrorists.

On February 24, 2012, the Securities and Exchange Commission charged three oil services executives with violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) by participating in a bribery scheme to obtain illicit permits for oil rigs in Nigeria in order to retain business under lucrative drilling contracts.