内容摘要：“They will also be turned into uninhabitable ruins, and their residents will be forced to migrate and seek a new life in other countries,” Smotrich said.

“They will also be turned into uninhabitable ruins, and their residents will be forced to migrate and seek a new life in other countries,” Smotrich said.

“You’ve sold it to a refinery and the money got paid in the bank account. So, it’s very clean that way,” he told Al Jazeera’s undercover reporters.According to Mathias, he “moves” gold valued at between $70mn and $80mn around every month. Apart from Zimbabwe, he listed Ghana, South Africa and Zambia among the countries that Macmillan and he can “export” gold from. Macmillan told Al Jazeera reporters that Mathias also works with “the Russians”.

Mathias, initially uncomfortable about Macmillan’s boastful attitude in front of our reporters, then explained what they needed to do in order for him to help launder their cash — set up a company in Dubai that they could claim was involved in the gold trade.When asked for a formal comment about the findings of Al Jazeera’s investigation, Mathias denied that he designed mechanisms to launder money and said that he had not laundered money or traded illegal gold for Russian clients or anyone else. He told us he had never had any working relationship with Macmillan.Next week, Al Jazeera will introduce more key characters involved in the gold mafia.

Decision to disband follows decades of attacks punctuated by failed peace talks and a changing political landscape.is a series of perspectives that puts news events and current affairs into historical context using graphics generated with artificial intelligence.

Al Jazeera infiltrates large gold-smuggling rings and reveals a giant money laundering scheme.

An investigation by Al Jazeera has revealed some of Southern Africa’s largest gold-smuggling operations, exposing how these gangs help criminals around the world launder billions of dollars while aiding governments in circumventing international sanctions.White House spokesperson Harrison Fields said in a statement that Trump is “always pleased to give well-deserving Americans a second chance, especially those who have been unfairly targeted and overly prosecuted by an unjust justice system”.

As a principle, this is fair enough, but normally there must be some evidence of remorse and rehabilitation. This week, in contrast, he pardoned Scott Jenkins, a longtime supporter and former Sheriff who had been found guilty in 2024 of accepting more than $75,000 in bribes in exchange for making several businessmen into official law enforcement agents. “Sheriff Scott Jenkins, his wife Patricia, and their family have been dragged through HELL,” Trump wrote in a post on his Truth Social network. Yet Jenkins had merely been dragged through the US trial system, like millions of others, and he had not even turned himself in to start his sentence.Then there was the Reality TV couple, Todd and Julie Chrisley, convicted in 2022 for defrauding banks of more than $36m by submitting false bank statements and other records. They spent their ill-gotten gains on luxury cars and travel, and it is difficult to see what they did to merit special treatment.

Which brings us to the latest case, that of Larry Hoover, the notorious founder of the Chicago Gangster Disciples, convicted of ordering the murder of a rival, along with a laundry list of other offences. Prosecutors did not even bother to bring many cases to trial. Indeed, at a hearing last year, a judge asked one of Hoover’s lawyers: “How many other murders is he responsible for?”Trump commuted his federal sentence, which is unlikely to achieve much more than to transfer him to the less pleasant Illinois prison, where he must serve 200 years on a state murder conviction. What does this achieve, and what was the president’s motive for doing it?