Press Releases

The U.S. District Court for the District of Alaska earlier this week dismissed the complaint in a case challenging President Trump’s rescission of Biden-era withdrawals of areas of the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) from oil and gas leasing. The court dismissed the case for lack of standing.

A vessel operating company pleaded guilty today in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania to charges stemming from the discharge of oily waste into the sea. MSC Shipmanagement Limited, one of the largest shipping companies in the world, pleaded guilty to two counts of violating the Act to Prevent Pollution from Ships (APPS) for conduct that occurred on the motor vessel MSC Samira III between June 2024 and January 2025. The vessel’s owner, Hong Kong Spirit Shipping and Trading Limited, also pleaded guilty to two counts of violating APPS. Both companies were sentenced to pay a combined fine of $1

Yesterday, the Justice Department’s Energy and Natural Resources Division (ENRD) filed a statement of interest in a lawsuit brought by the Oklahoma Attorney General, expressing support for the construction of a primary aluminum smelter in Inola, Oklahoma.

 A Nigerian national was sentenced yesterday to 95 months in prison for his role in a money laundering conspiracy involving millions of dollars tied to various fraud schemes — including business email compromise, romance, and unemployment insurance fraud scams — perpetrated against U.S. citizens.

Venezuelan national and illegal alien Rafael Enrique Gamez Salas, 40, has been extradited from the United States to Chile, at the request of the Government of Chile, so that he may be prosecuted on seven charges stemming from his alleged role as a leader of “Los Piratas,” the primary Chilean cell of the Venezuelan transnational criminal organization Tren de Aragua (TdA).

A Brooklyn, New York, woman pleaded guilty today to preparing false tax returns for clients.

The Justice Department announced today that two Nigerian men have been extradited to the United States from Nigeria to face prosecution in two separate cases for the financially-motivated sextortion of minors that resulted in the death of teenagers in both the Northern District of Mississippi and the Middle District of North Carolina.

A Florida resident and Russian national, Alexander Mamonov, 62, was convicted on all charges yesterday following a jury trial related to a scheme to illegally export aircraft parts from the United States to Russia and the state-owned Russian airline, PJSC Aeroflot. 

The Justice Department, together with the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), today announced a $50 million settlement with Walmart Inc. (Walmart) to resolve allegations that Walmart pharmacies illegally filled thousands of invalid prescriptions for opioids and other controlled substances in violation of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA).

The leader of a Dominican Republic-based international cocaine trafficking and money laundering organization was extradited from Colombia to the United States yesterday to face drug trafficking charges filed in two separate indictments in the Districts of Puerto Rico and New Jersey as well as money laundering charges in the District of New Jersey. The prosecutions are part of the Homeland Security Task Force (HSTF) initiative.

Two Mexican nationals pleaded guilty today to multiple charges including alien smuggling and providing material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization, specifically, Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion (CJNG).

The Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division announced today its finding that the George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Services (GW Med) intentionally discriminated based on race in granting and denying admission to its 2024 and 2025 incoming classes. GW Med’s discriminatory conduct violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, and the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2023 decision in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard (SFFA), which banned race discrimination in higher education.