China has launched a public consultation on legislation billed as the country's first foundational law governing the entire financial sector www.linkedin.com/posts/stephe...

In a kleptocracy, one must make sure inner circle cronies get deals regardless of who offers the best product and/or best price. Thus, kleptocracies are hugely economically inefficient and require significant govt interference in markets.

The “Fighting Foreign Illegal Seafood Harvests Act of 2025” or the “FISH Act” proposed in the US Senate calls for the creation of a public list of foreign vessels, foreign fleets, and beneficial owners of foreign vessels or fleets engaged in IUU fishing www.congress.gov/bill/119th-c...

“Renderings of the new structure make it look like the old White House mated with Treasury…” An architectural representation of kleptocracy (rule by thieves) via the emerging White House ballroom

The Open Contracting Partnership lists 73 red flags for corruption in government procurement. It’s as if DHS leadership were instead using the red flags as a checklist and how-to guide for self enrichment.

Today is the last day to respond to Cyprus' consultation on the granting of legitimate interest access to its beneficial ownership register of trusts and legal arrangements www.cysec.gov.cy/el-GR/public... #beneficialownership #legitimateinterest #6AMLD

Switzerland has approved an anti-money laundering strategy which says the country’s new beneficial ownership register must be “implemented effectively” and “continuously reviewed for efficiency and effectiveness”. Also stresses the need for quality, linked datasets www.news.admin.ch/en/newnsb/mB...

The paranoid in me is starting to wonder if this is as much about walling people in as keeping people out

Possible historical parallel was how the insanely corrupt leading Nazi Hermann Göring took over many of the best industrial assets for himself, including huge steelworks (especially useful given the importance of steel to war production)

New oil refinery to be built in Texas and announced by Trump will include companies tightly tied to 2 x cabinet members plus ties to Trump sons and other Trump inner circle investors.

The US is no longer a liberal democracy, according to the top global watchdog on freedom and democracy. We're falling fast, and are now classed the same as Guatemala, Colombia, and Peru www.v-dem.net/documents/75...

NEW: Toxic oil waste is increasingly shooting out of the ground in Oklahoma, contaminating the state’s drinking water. We found that regulators identified 2,000 problem wells in a 2021 report. Then they ignored their findings. With @readfrontier.bsky.social

“If Zambia won’t sign, “sharp public cuts to American foreign assistance would significantly demonstrate to aid-receiving countries the seriousness of our interest in collaboration and our insistence on tangible benefits under our America First foreign policy,” the draft memo says.”

A Pentagon recruiter openly offers corruption: “unmatched access to top-level government officials and privileged information flow — whatever you need, you can get.” www.nytimes.com/2026/03/13/u...

Dirty money, golden postcodes: Iran’s £200m London empire An investigation by @thetimes.com reveals property portfolio linked to the Iranian regime - including luxury flats allegedly held for new supreme leader Confirms reporting by @occrp.org and @bloomberg.com www.thetimes.com/article/7f4d...

Bobi Wine: Ugandan opposition leader goes abroad after two months in hiding

In a kleptocracy (rule by thieves), the national interest is a secondary consideration to the regime’s goals of gaining more money and power, even in wartime. That’s assuming the national interest is considered at all…💰

The aftermath of the Iranian strike on the oil tankers at the Basra oil terminal shows an oil slick near the burned out tanker, March 14. It's likely fuel oil as the cargo, oil condensates / naphtha, seemed to have burned of in the fire after the explosion

This is an unambiguous example of “ungoverning.” Ungoverning is when a regime deliberately dismantles the ability of a state to respond to its people—not just reforms, but large scale deliberate actions that will get people killed, hurt the economy.

“…fewer than 40 people working at the DHS CRCL , including between 25 and 30 outside contractors…but just before Donald Trump returned to the White House last January there were 147 full-time employees at the CRCL. They were all ousted by the new admin.”

German investigative reporter Patrizia Schlosser is a new guest of Protagonista podcast. Her reporting delves into neo-Nazi networks, far-left Red Army Faction extremists and the dark online economies built on revenge and deepfake porn. Watch the full episode: buff.ly/Pjkbe3z

In 2024, the teams from GLEIF, @openownership.bsky.social and @opensanctions.org demonstrated how high-quality legal entity, beneficial ownership and sanctions data can show sanctions propagating through an ownership network using the example of a sanctioned Iranian bank transparencyfabric.gleif.org

I realize that marketing campaigns are planned out months in advanced, but maybe it’s not a good time for a nationwide bakery to market #Dubai chocolate Bundt cake.

When you put it like this, a $75 million bribe to Melania and gutting the Washington Post seems like a small price to pay.

Large scale sex trafficking and money laundering networks would not have succeeded for long without substantial corruption. In this case, it includes hiring the US Virgin Islands governor’s wife and befriending CBP officers and former US &other politicians.

“…as his period of house arrest was coming to an end, Mr. Epstein emailed Cecile de Jongh, who was his office manager in the U.S. Virgin Islands and was the territory’s first lady. He asked who was in charge of customs, noting that an official at the St. Thomas airport “has been difficult lately...”

“About 3/4 of the 2.5m fed acres, known as O&C lands…are protected from regular logging. But in its notice of intent, the land management bureau indicated it could return those acres to 1960s harvest levels, at times more than 10 times average harvest levels over the last two decades.”

Don’t punish wrongdoing. Reward it. That’s how this administration works. fortune.com/2026/02/13/b...

It's a headscratcher alright...

Under the order, a covered financial institution is required to identify and verify the beneficial owners of a legal entity customer in only the following circumstances: www.fincen.gov/news/news-re...

From Wired today. AI results thingy at the top of google searches always had a lot of garbage but now it is used for scams, too. People figured out how to insert scam phone numbers into phone # searches. Am I showing my age if I say how much I miss the days when google was a good search engine?

1/ ProPublica collected handwritten letters in mid-January from children held at the Dilley Immigration Processing Center, the same facility where 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos was taken. Hundreds of kids are still detained. We’ll let the children’s words speak for themselves. 🧵

My thoughts on new US tax accounting disclosures, for @bloombergtax.com: "These new disclosures are a major improvement on what we’ve had before. The hope is that with more public scrutiny, big multinationals are less likely to play offshore tax games that put investors at risk."

We still haven't solved tax havens. "American Express lowered its corporate income taxes by $241m through operations on the island of Jersey in 2025....Without the Jersey effect, American Express's tax rate would have been 1.8% higher." via @richardrubindc.bsky.social www.wsj.com/livecoverage...

What does it say about the state of the US and its democracy today if it plans to celebrate its 250th birthday by building a giant arch with bribe money? 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸

“…funded with leftover private donations to his White House ballroom project, which he has said could cost about $400m. Publicly identified donors to the ballroom project, such as Amazon, Google and Lockheed Martin, collectively have billions of dollars in contracts before the administration.”

#FIFA seems to have a #kleptocracy problem. The last 2 x World Cups were held in highly corrupt states (#Qatar and #Russia) and part of the upcoming one will too (US). 🤔

I study #corruption for a living and even I’m in awe at the creativity and venality of these schemes: a $1b bribe to Trump gives corrupt leaders dibs to send huge contracts to selves and cronies as part of post-genocide reconstruction. WOW 🤯

Unhinged

I wonder how #Hungarian voters feel about their #Kleptocrat Viktor Orban giving $1billion of Hungarian taxpayer money to #Trump for a seat on a board about #Gaza? Could be an interesting election issue this spring.

It’s notable that a majority of the members of this board have either engaged in #corruption themselves of shilled for those who do. Not a good sign for good governance reforms in #Gaza, which Gaza’s people so desperately need and deserve.

What are some #Trump insiders’ financial links with critical minerals contracts in #Greenland? A new expose’ out this morning 👇🏻

"There is no basis in law for a president to set up an offshore account that he controls so that he can sell assets seized by the American military. That is precisely a move that a corrupt politician would be attracted to." @warren.senate.gov

Democracy activist/scholar Srdja Popovic describes the “Maduro Model” whereby an authoritarian (or wanna be one) is willing to even risk crashing their economy to stay in power. Read more about it here: www.theatlantic.com/magazine/arc...

A huge shoutout to the folks at Citizen Historians for taking pictures of all exhibits at the Smithsonian—including at the National Portrait Gallery—so we have a historical record of what had been there before. Read more about the remarkable volunteers here: www.citizenhistorians.org

Wise advice for today: “Yes, he was indoctrinated,” Dr. Matthäus said of Mr. Onnen [the murderer]. “But what is probably more important is that you are part of a machine, and if you don’t make a deliberate decision to get out of it, you get further drawn into this.”

#Afghan Analysts Network published a summary of what university courses and books are banned by the far right Taliban as they seek to Make Afghanistan Great Again (as defined by the Taliban). The report is excellent and should be read in full. But some thoughts 🧵

“…there are a number of personnel actions that can be taken-letters of counseling or reprimand-that, even if found to be baseless later, would affect one’s potential for promotion and impact their discharge.“

Know what would make this more effective? Enforcing the Corporate Transparency Act—which is part of same NDAA—so PRC-linked firms can’t hide behind anonymous companies; then add a public registry (which is the intl standard) so companies can look up who owns their suppliers.

As reported in the article, it sounds like Mr Smith is kneecapping fire depts twice: 1st by not paying his taxes and thus depriving them of the funds they need and then in charging extortionate rates for software they need.