🇲🇽 🤝 🇨🇳 Federal Indictment Alleges Alliance Between Sinaloa Cartel and Money Launderers Linked to Chinese Underground Banking

🔶️ The multi-year investigation into this conspiracy—dubbed “Operation Fortune Runner”—resulted in a superseding indictment returned on April 4 and unsealed on Monday charging a total of 24 defendants with one count of conspiracy to aid and abet the distribution of cocaine and methamphetamine, one count of conspiracy to launder monetary instruments, and one count of conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money transmitting business.

🔶️ The superseding indictment alleges that a Sinaloa Cartel-linked money laundering network collected and, with help from a San Gabriel Valley, California-based money transmitting group with links to Chinese underground banking, processed large amounts of drug proceeds in U.S. currency in the Los Angeles area. They then allegedly concealed their drug trafficking proceeds and made the proceeds generated in the United States accessible to cartel members in Mexico and elsewhere.

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/federal-indictment-alleges-alliance-between-sinaloa-cartel-and-money-launderers-linked

⚠️ Confirmed: Metrics show a significant disruption to internet service across much of #Ecuador with national connectivity down to 44% of ordinary levels; the incident is attributed to a failure in the transmission line per CENACE 🔌#sinluz #apagón

🇨🇦❌🇨🇳Canada blocks Chinese rare earths deal in Trudeau-led crackdown

Canada’s government will buy stockpiled rare earth materials from Vital Metals Ltd. in a deal that prevents the company from selling its production to a Chinese buyer.

The small Australian firm, which mines rare earths in Canada’s Northwest Territories, will sell its stockpiled rare earth material to the Saskatchewan Research Council for C$3 million ($2.2 million). The arrangement, facilitated by Canada’s federal government, keeps Vital from moving forward on a plan it started in December to sell that same stockpile to China’s Shenghe Resources Holding Co. for C$2.4 million ($1.7 million).

#China
🍁 Maple Chronicles

🇰🇵 🇷🇺 🇺🇦 Kim Vows to Back Putin ‘Unconditionally’ on War in Ukraine

🔶️ “I would like to stress that the birth of this treaty, the most powerful treaty in the history of North Korea-Russia relations, was possible thanks to President Putin’s outstanding foresightedness and bold determination,” Kim said at a news briefing after the talks.

🔶️ “Russia hasn’t been an active player in Asia for a long time, both militarily and diplomatically. But its upgraded and comprehensive relationship with North Korea means that Asia has now quickly woken up to a threat by another big power,” said Duyeon Kim, a Seoul-based adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security. “An inadvertent conflict based on miscalculation could potentially escalate to a regional or world war.”

🔶️ “Today we have prepared a new fundamental document that will form the basis of our relations for the long term,” Putin told the North Korean leader. “We highly appreciate your consistent and unwavering support for Russian policy, including in the Ukrainian direction.”

🔶️ Kim said his country would “unwaveringly, unconditionally support Russia’s every policy regardless of any complication on the international geopolitical situation going forward.”

🔶️ In return for the munitions from Kim’s regime that could reach as high as nearly 5 million artillery shells, Russia has sent to North Korea technology to help in its plans to deploy an array of spy satellites, South Korean Defense Minister Shin Wonsik said in a recent interview with Bloomberg News. Russia will likely send military technology to Kim, increasing Pyongyang’s threat to the region, he said.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-06-19/kim-pledges-to-unconditionally-support-putin-on-war-in-ukraine

https://archive.ph/0XvhG

Via 𝕏

@FelipeChannel

🇸🇦 Saudi Arabia: The World's Fourth-Largest Oil Consumer

Saudi Arabia is the world's fourth-largest oil consumer at 3.7 million b/d, following the U.S., China, and India. According to Bloomberg columnist Javier Blas, if Saudi Arabia does not reduce its oil consumption, the global peak in oil consumption may not occur by 2030.

Blas highlights that the IEA forecasts a reduction in Saudi Arabia's oil demand by 500,000 b/s.

"In short, global oil demand may not peak until 2030 if Saudi Arabia plays it right and embarks on a massive oil conservation program. If it doesn't, the global numbers don't add up," the article states.

The power and water sector accounts for about 25% of Saudi Arabia's total oil consumption.

During the seasonal peak, typically in late August and early September, Saudi Arabia burns approximately 1.4 million b/d of unrefined crude oil and fuel oil in its power plants, equivalent to France's total daily oil consumption. Riyadh aims to save about 1 million b/d by 2030. Saudi Aramco expects that in six years, almost 50% of the utility sector will be powered by renewables, and 50% by gas.

However, these plans may face delays due to their scale. The kingdom will need to upgrade and build new power plants and invest billions of dollars in more energy-efficient desalination plants.

"It may seem counterintuitive, but if global oil demand peaks soon, Tesla and its electric car rivals aren't the only companies to watch. Equally important will be Saudi state-owned electricity and water companies," Blas concludes.

#SaudiArabia #oil
@songofoil

🇳🇪 🇫🇷 🇷🇺 Niger revokes French nuclear group’s licence at major uranium mine

🔶️ Removal of Orano licence highlights tensions with France, with Russia said to be eyeing the major site.

🔶️ State-owned Orano said on Thursday that it had been ordered out of the Imouraren mine in northern Niger which sits on an estimated 200,000 tonnes of the metal, used for nuclear power and weapons.

🔶️ Orano insisted in a statement on Thursday that it had recently resumed “activities” at the site, reopening “infrastructures” to accommodate “construction teams”, its work in line with the wishes of the government, which came to power in a coup in July last year.

🔶️ “Russian companies have indicated interest in the uranium mining site in Imouraren and we’ve seen also a flurry of activities between Russian businesses and … Russian mercenaries in Niger, which could point to the direction where this new license … may be headed to,” he added.

🔶️ Niger, which accounts for about a quarter of the natural uranium supplied to Europe, is landlocked and its border with Benin, its main sea access, is closed, hindering exports of its minerals. The government says this is for “security” reasons.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/6/21/niger-revokes-french-nuclear-groups-licence-at-major-uranium-mine

🇦🇷📉
The Government of Javier Milei has achieved a week with ZERO inflation

According to Econometrica's weekly measurement, the third week of June had no price increases in food and beverages in Argentina, thus achieving the first week without inflation in 30 years.

BREAKING: 🟠 Mt Gox to start repayments of 141,868 $BTC worth $8.8 Billion❗️

https://www.mtgox.com/img/pdf/20240624_announcement_en.pdf