The International Enforcement Law Reporter is a monthly print and online journal covering news and trends in international enforcement law.
Since September 1985, the International Enforcement Law Reporter has analyzed the premier developments in both the substantive and procedural aspects of international enforcement law. Read by practitioners, academics, and politicians, the IELR is a valuable guide to the difficult and dynamic field of international law.
On May 21, 2025, Douglas Edelman, a former defense contractor, pleaded guilty to tax crimes concerning his efforts to defraud the United States and evade taxes on income that he earned from his contracts with the U.S. Department of Defense.[1]
On May 21, 2025, the International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) issued a statement on combating online fraud and the role of Platform Providers.[1] Meanwhile, the private sector[2] and civil society organizations[3] have also blown their bugles for strengthening efforts to prevent and combat online fraud from social media platforms.
On May 1, 2025, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) issued a finding and notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) under Section 311 of the USA PATRIOT Act identifying Cambodia-based Huione Group as a financial institution of primary money laundering concern and proposing to close its access to the U.S. financial system.[1]
On April 15, 2025, a former soldier within Gambia’s military force was convicted by a U.S. jury of five counts of torture and one count of conspiracy to commit torture in Denver, Colorado. Following a five-day trial, this historic judgment marks the first time a non-U.S. citizen has ever been found criminally responsible for torture committed internationally by a jury in the United States.
On May 16, 2025, the U.S. Supreme Court expanded its prohibition on removal from the United States of Venezuelan men now in immigration custody in Texas. The Court issued an eight-page unsigned opinion, returning the case to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit.
On Tuesday, May 6, 2025, a federal jury ordered NSO Group, an Israeli-based government spyware company, to pay a record $167 million in damages for hacking more than 1,000 people through WhatsApp messages, concluding six years of litigation.[2] The jury returned its verdict on the second day of deliberations in the damages phase of the trial held in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. In a prior ruling issued in December, Judge Phyllis J. Hamilton granted summary judgment in favor of WhatsApp, holding that the Israel-based NSO Group violated the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act,[3] (CFAA) as well as California’s Comprehensive Computer Data Access and Fraud Act[4] (CDAFA), through its deployment of NSO’s Pegasus spyware.
On May 16, 2025, the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) announced the first indictment, which was unsealed that day, for providing material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization (FTO). The charge was made against a Mexican national based on her involvement with the Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion (CJNG), including furnishing the cartel with grenades and engaging in alien smuggling, firearms trafficking, bulk cash smuggling, and narcotics trafficking on its behalf.
For the first time in the United States, two leaders of the Sinaloa Cartel have been charged by indictment with narco-terrorism and materially supporting a foreign terrorist organization, in addition to the trafficking of illicit narcotics and money laundering.
More than ten years after the 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) scandal, the Malaysian government continues to actively take steps in enforcement, both in trying to extradite former Goldman Sachs partner Tim Leissner and in trying to recover assets.
