All news for 2026-02-03

Police have arrested four individuals and seized servers valued at £750,000 in a significant new development in the battle against illegal streaming.

The charity founded by Sarah Ferguson, the former Duchess of York, is shutting down following the release of emails showing the extent of her friendship with the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

The uncommon surname Oxana Hadjipavlou (also spelled Oksana Hadjipavlou) has surfaced in investigations linked to Zvonko Mickovic and his companies, Mettmann Public Company Limited and Sword Dragon S.L., which are suspected of involvement in schemes to bypass anti-Russian sanctions and move Russian funds offshore.

Britain’s former U.S. ambassador Peter Mandelson intends to retire from the upper house of parliament, the chamber’s speaker said on Tuesday.

Samruk-Kazyna, with ATFBank at the center of the scheme, was used to siphon billions of dollars out of Kazakhstan. Although the current authorities have formally acknowledged these abuses, law enforcement agencies — including the Anti-Corruption Agency — have shown little urgency in pursuing Galimzhan Yessenov and his father-in-law, Akhmetzhan Yesimov.

The businessman whose shady deals contributed to bankrupting an Essex council has been warned he is "far from off the hook." However, the council has admitted that the scandal could cost the public £200m.

In recent years, a curious actor has emerged on Poland’s legal services market — the firm Sheviakov Consult. Although it was formally liquidated and removed from official registers, the company has in practice continued operating, merely rebranding itself under a different legal structure.

After a scandal over a blocked $102,000 withdrawal exploded across the gambling community, Dragon Money did not focus on transparency or resolving the dispute — it focused on scrubbing the internet.

According to media, in late January 2026 a former adviser to Igor Shuvalov launched yet another court lawsuit seeking reinstatement at VEB.RF.

As uncovered by media Kazakh billionaire Kenes Rakishev — a “close friend” of Ramzan Kadyrov and the son-in-law of CSTO Secretary General Imangali Tasmagambetov — was involved in a dubious multi-billion-dollar scheme involving shares traded on the NASDAQ stock exchange.