Week of April 20–24, 2026. The Investigative Journal’s Global Corruption Watch compiles verified developments in kleptocracy, money laundering, foreign bribery, and sanctions enforcement, drawn from court filings, sanctions notices, and public-record reporting by OCCRP, ICIJ, Transparency International, FATF, and U.S. Treasury agencies.
Nepal’s power-broker arrest widens into a multi-group money-laundering probe
Nepalese authorities this week escalated what is shaping up to be one of South Asia’s most significant money-laundering cases in years. Infinity Holdings chairman Deepak Bhatta, arrested April 2 from the Patan area of Lalitpur, remains in custody as the country’s Department of Money Laundering Investigation (DMLI) widens its net. On April 15, investigators raided the residences of Bhatta and Shanker Group vice-chairman Sulav Agrawal as well as the offices of Himalayan Re-Insurance, according to reporting by the Kathmandu Post.
Filings reviewed by OCCRP indicate that in June 2021 Nepal’s central bank flagged a 450 million Nepalese rupee (roughly $3.02 million) transfer from Jagadamba Steel to Bhatta’s personal account — a transaction omitted from the steel company’s audit report. Investigators allege Bhatta then funneled the money through Infinity Holdings into Himalayan Reinsurance Co. Ltd., where he is listed as a promoter. DMLI has separately asked the Nepal Insurance Authority to examine Bhatta’s 3.81 billion rupee ($25.6 million) purchase of secondary-market shares in Nepal Reinsurance Co. Ltd., which records suggest may have been financed through misappropriated funds.
The case illustrates a pattern TIJ has flagged repeatedly: politically connected holding companies in frontier markets using reinsurance and capital-markets vehicles to layer proceeds of suspect contracts. Bhatta, who chairs Infinity Holdings, has long faced scrutiny for allegedly leveraging political and bureaucratic connections to secure government work across multiple administrations, according to public-record reporting. Charges remain allegations pending trial; Bhatta has not been convicted.
OFAC adds Iranian aviation network to the SDN list
On April 21 the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control designated additional individuals and aircraft connected to Iran’s Mahan Air, publishing the action in the Federal Register on April 24. Among those named was Gholam Abbas Ataei Aghdam (also rendered as Aghdam, Gholamabbas Atayyi), an Iranian national born June 8, 1954. OFAC also identified a Boeing 777-200ER with registration EP-MTB operated by Mahan Air as blocked property.
The designation is part of a sustained Treasury posture toward Iranian sanctions-evasion networks. Separately, on March 31 OFAC issued new guidance on “Sham Transactions and Sanctions Evasion,” confirming that the 50 Percent Rule remains in force but is a floor rather than a ceiling on corporate diligence — a shift compliance counsel at Jenner & Block said puts “beneficial control” squarely in scope for banks and exporters dealing with complex ownership structures.
FCPA conviction: coal executive faces sentencing in $143M Egyptian bribery scheme
A Pennsylvania federal jury’s February 18 conviction of former Corsa Coal Corp. vice president Charles Hunter Hobson remains a structural data point for this week’s digest as sentencing is scheduled for June 25. According to the Department of Justice, Hobson was convicted on one count of conspiracy to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, two substantive FCPA counts, money-laundering conspiracy, two substantive money-laundering counts, and wire-fraud conspiracy.
Court filings indicate Hobson conspired to bribe officials at Al Nasr Co. for Coke and Chemicals, an Egyptian state-controlled manufacturer, to secure coal-supply contracts worth roughly $143 million. Prosecutors allege he personally received more than $200,000 in kickbacks routed through a United Arab Emirates shell company, Western Union transfers, and cash handovers — including a Dubai trip from which he returned with $30,000 in cash. Analysis by Hogan Lovells characterizes the verdict as a signal that the Department of Justice still intends to pursue individual accountability for foreign bribery, even as enterprise-level FCPA priorities have narrowed under revised 2026 guidelines.
Europe’s beneficial-ownership rollback is shielding the corrupt, OCCRP finds
An April 17 OCCRP feature documents how access to beneficial-ownership registries has shrunk across the European Union since the Court of Justice’s 2022 ruling that unrestricted public access could violate privacy rights. In response, multiple member states closed or curtailed their registries. Transparency International road-tested legitimate-interest access across 14 EU countries already operating under the restricted regime and found that requests routinely sat pending for weeks, with paperwork, fees, and language barriers often functioning as de facto bars.
The stakes are operational. Investigators tracking figures such as Lebanese former central-bank governor Riad Salameh — whose case was referred to Lebanon’s highest criminal court in January — have relied on EU registries to map the shell structures allegedly used to divert approximately $330 million from Banque du Liban transactions through a British Virgin Islands vehicle called Forry Associates. Member states have until July 2026 to transpose operational rules under the revised EU Anti-Money Laundering Directive, and how those rules define “legitimate interest” will determine whether investigators retain practical access.
Transparency International CPI: U.S. slips to lowest-ever ranking
The 2025 Corruption Perceptions Index, released February 10, 2026, documents a global average score of 42 — a new low — with more than two-thirds of the 182 countries scoring below 50. Denmark (89), Finland (88), and Singapore (84) led the index; South Sudan and Somalia (both 9) and Venezuela (10) were at the bottom. The United States slipped one place to 29th, the lowest U.S. ranking since 2012, a trajectory Transparency International attributes to weakening enforcement institutions and decreased checks on political financing. Western European nations still occupy nine of the top ten slots, but the region’s average fell faster than any other this cycle.
FinCEN pushes sweeping AML overhaul and stablecoin rules
The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network advanced three substantial regulatory proposals during April that, together, would reshape U.S. anti-money-laundering practice for the next decade. On April 1, FinCEN issued a notice of proposed rulemaking creating a formal Bank Secrecy Act whistleblower program; on April 7, FinCEN and federal banking regulators jointly proposed an overhaul of AML/CFT program requirements that would move supervision from a technical-compliance model to a risk-based, effectiveness-driven framework; and on April 10, FinCEN and OFAC jointly proposed rules implementing the AML and sanctions-compliance provisions of the GENIUS Act for stablecoin issuers. Comments on the major proposals are due June 9, 2026.
In parallel enforcement action, FinCEN announced on April 15 that its Rapid Response Program had interdicted nearly $2 billion on behalf of U.S. cyber-enabled fraud victims. Much of that volume ties back to Southeast Asian scam compounds — the same ecosystem that produced the Prince Group case this week continues to dominate cross-border typology reports.
Prince Group: South Korea joins coordinated sanctions on Cambodia’s scam empire
The Cambodia-based Prince Group Transnational Criminal Organization, led by Chen Zhi, remains at the center of the largest coordinated action ever taken against Southeast Asian cybercriminal networks. U.S. and U.K. authorities imposed sweeping sanctions on 146 targets in October 2025, and the Department of Justice indicted Chen Zhi on wire-fraud and money-laundering conspiracy charges related to forced-labor scam compounds generating “pig butchering” cryptocurrency fraud. DOJ separately seized roughly $15 billion in bitcoin, the largest cryptocurrency forfeiture in U.S. history.
Reporting by CNBC confirms South Korea joined the coordinated action in late 2025, following Singapore and the U.K. Americans lost an estimated $10 billion to Southeast Asian scam operations in 2024 — a 66 percent year-over-year increase, according to Treasury figures. A new April 6 OCCRP and Guardian Australia investigation found that a blockchain network recently partnered with a U.S.-based crypto firm pursued a planned resort deal involving three individuals later sanctioned in the Prince Group action — a thread TIJ intends to follow.
FATF monitoring: Kuwait and Papua New Guinea added in February
Data shows the Financial Action Task Force’s February 2026 update added Kuwait and Papua New Guinea to its list of jurisdictions under increased monitoring — the so-called grey list — while making no changes to the black list of Iran, North Korea, and Myanmar. Jurisdictions currently grey-listed include Venezuela, Nigeria, the Philippines, Vietnam, Yemen, Kenya, Namibia, Cameroon, South Sudan, and the Democratic Republic of Congo, according to the FATF. The next plenary update is scheduled for June.
Leads warranting deeper TIJ investigation
Three threads from this week merit follow-up reporting. First, the intersection of the Prince Group network with U.S.-affiliated crypto ventures flagged by OCCRP and Guardian Australia raises questions about counterparty diligence that domestic regulators have not yet publicly addressed. Second, the Bhatta probe in Nepal appears poised to expose a broader pattern of reinsurance-sector money laundering in South Asia that, if substantiated by court filings, would parallel typologies flagged in earlier OCCRP work in the Balkans. Third, the forthcoming July 2026 deadline for EU member states to transpose the revised Anti-Money Laundering Directive will be a decisive inflection point for whether journalists and investigators retain meaningful access to beneficial-ownership registries — a question Transparency International has framed as central to post-Panama Papers enforcement.
All cases discussed above are drawn from public filings, sanctions notices, and reporting by independent outlets. Pending matters remain allegations until adjudicated. TIJ will update this digest as new public-record developments warrant.