Marcelo Irigoin, of Hialeah, Florida, owner of an unnamed electronics exporter, pleaded guilty to money laundering proceeds from the illegal sale of narcotics through the Black Market Peso Exchange, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York announced. Irigoin shuffled over $1.4 million through the peso exchange -- a market through which narcotics proceeds are bought and sold then shipped overseas through shell companies and "mirrored transactions," the U.S. Attorney's Office said.

The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York granted the U.S. a warrant to seize a Boeing 787-8 aircraft and Gulfstream G650ER aircraft owned by sanctioned Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich, DOJ announced June 6. The district court said the airplanes are subject to seizure and forfeiture based on probable cause of violating the Export Control Reform Act and recent Russia sanctions imposed following the country's invasion of Ukraine (see 2206060038).

The Securities and Exchange Commission last week fined Tenaris, a Luxembourg-based manufacturer of steel pipe products, more than $78 million for alleged violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Employees and agents of Tenaris’ Brazilian subsidiary allegedly paid about $10.4 million in bribes to a Brazilian government official involved with the bidding process at Petrobras, Brazil’s state-owned petroleum company, the SEC said June 2.

Vika Latai Moa, former operations manager for global logistics and freight forwarding company Savino Del Bene USA, pleaded guilty to embezzling over $2.6 million from the company, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Texas announced May 31. Moa, of Euless, Texas, worked at the Dallas office of Savino USA from 2016 to 2019. The Florence, Italy, company's U.S. subsidiary is headquartered in New Jersey.

Multinational commodity trading and mining company Glencore International pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in New York May 24 to violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York announced. Glencore Ltd. also pleaded guilty in the District of Connecticut to conspiring to manipulate commodity prices. Collectively, Glencore International and Glencore agreed to pay over $1.1 billion to settle the investigations into bribery and commodity price manipulation.

Jonathan Yet Wing Soong, former employee at Universities Space Research Association, was charged with violating export control laws by shipping sensitive aeronautics software to a university in Beijing, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of California announced. Soong, of San Jose, is charged with violating the International Emergency Economic Powers Act and and one count of smuggling, which, respectively, carry maximum penalties of 20 years in prison and a $1 million fine, and 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

Luis Enrique Martinelli Linares and Ricardo Enrique Martinelli Linares, brothers who are both dual citizens of Panama and Italy, were sentenced to 36 months in prison each for laundering $28 million in a bribery and money laundering scheme with Brazilian construction conglomerate Oderbrecht S.A., DOJ announced. The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York also ordered the brothers to forfeit more than $18.8 million and pay a $250,000 fine along with serving two years of supervised release.

Hamzeh Jamal Alasfar and Tayseer Issam Alkhayyat, two business owners in Charlotte, North Carolina, were indicted for allegedly selling fraudulently obtained Apple iPhones and other electronic devices to buyers in the U.S. and across the globe, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Western District of North Carolina announced. The charges, which include conspiracy to transport stolen and fraudulently obtained goods in interstate commerce and two counts of interstate and foreign transportation of stolen property, carry maximum sentences of five and 10 years in prison, respectively. All charges carry a maximum $250,000 fine per count as well.

Technology executive Obaidullah Syed, of Northbrook, Illinois, was sentenced to a year and a day in prison for illegally exporting computer equipment to a nuclear research agency in Pakistan, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Illinois announced May 18. Syed pleaded guilty in 2021 to conspiring to ship the goods without a license and to submit false export information. Before sentencing, Syed forfeited $247,000 of cash derived from the illegal sales.

Chenyan Wu and Lianchun Chen, a married couple in San Diego, pleaded guilty May 19 to gathering confidential mRNA research from the pharmaceutical company where both worked, part of their effort to aid the husband's competing laboratory research in China, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of California announced May 19.