MEXC Global faces U.S. cutoff over alleged illicit money flows

Treasury says MEXC facilitated at least $16 billion in illicit transactions

The Trump administration said MEXC Global, a large cryptocurrency exchange, facilitated illicit money flows involving Iran, North Korea and Russia, and the exchange will be cut off from the U.S. financial system. The Wall Street Journal reported the prospective cutoff.

The Treasury Department said Friday that MEXC facilitated at least $16 billion in illicit transactions connected to sanctions evasion and cybercrime from May 2021 to May 2026. The department said MEXC facilitated transactions for the Central Bank of Iran, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, sanctioned Russian entity Garantex and the Russian sanctions-evasion network known as A7.

The Wall Street Journal reported that Jason Reding Quiñones, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Florida, oversaw a “wide-ranging investigation into President Trump’s political foes” and has resigned. The outlet said the resignation was expected to be part of a series of departures from the Justice Department after the midterm elections.

Earlier Wall Street Journal reporting said department leadership had grown frustrated in recent months with what those officials saw as “mismanagement” by Quiñones. The probe examined whether U.S. intelligence and law-enforcement officials engaged in what that earlier report called a “grand conspiracy” against Trump.

A Wall Street Journal podcast discussed how the Democrats’ sweeping midterm victories could usher in new congressional investigations. The episode also spoke with an outgoing Republican official in Texas, who said his party paid a price for ignoring backlash against AI data centers in the state.

In a South Pacific analysis, The Wall Street Journal said China had pulled off a “diplomatic coup” four years ago by persuading the Solomon Islands to sign a secretive security deal. The analysis said the deal threatened to undermine “Western dominance” in a region where countries have long competed for influence.

The newsletter said China’s advances in the South Pacific had since been curbed and stated: “Aggressive diplomatic maneuvering by Australia, the election of Western-friendly leaders and perceptions of overreach by Beijing have delivered rare gains for the West.” The analysis said the shift was helping the U.S. counter China in the Pacific, where Beijing’s rise as a maritime power threatened decades of “American supremacy.”

Ahead of what would become a public feud on social media this weekend, James Blair, President Trump’s former deputy chief of staff, sent Calley Means, a former top health adviser, a warning. “If you are gonna try to knife me, I’m happy to return the favor,” Blair told Means in a text message reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.

The threatening exchanges between the two former senior advisers laid bare the “rocky road” ahead for the Republican Party as Trump allies swap blame for the party’s “stunning losses” in the midterms. Some of the infighting has centered on allegations of “profiting off connections to the Trump administration,” the newsletter said, while voters ranked corruption as one of the top issues heading into the election.

Nvidia’s board said it is launching an investigation into reports that CEO Jensen Huang has been the target of a foreign espionage effort. The board’s action followed Jensen Huang’s romantic relationship with Alice Huang, who was then a top executive at Megaspeed International and whom U.S. officials suspected of working for Chinese intelligence.

The Wall Street Journal earlier reported that U.S. officials last year concluded that Chinese citizen Alice Huang was sharing information with the Chinese government while working with Nvidia to build data centers in Asia. Huang, who also goes by Huang Le, is not related to the Nvidia CEO. Jensen Huang apologized to his staff and family Sunday for being unfaithful to his wife, the newsletter reported.

Brief: Armed non-state groups: The International Committee of the Red Cross estimated the number of people across 60 countries who live in areas controlled or contested by armed non-state groups.

Brief: Presidential finances: In an interview on 60 Minutes, President Trump, speaking about why his net worth had increased during his presidency, said, “I devote almost no time to my net worth. I don’t care.”