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American prosecutors and the defense team for alleged South American druglord Sebastian Marset waived his right to a speedy trial today, while the U.S. government signaled that more charges are likely on the way.

Marset appeared for his arraignment hearing at the U.S. District Court for Eastern Virginia, where he was read the charges against him. He shook hands with his attorneys, up from Miami, and signed a waiver for a guaranteed quick trial.

A Uruguayan national with operations in Paraguay, the heavily tattooed Marset was arrested in the south of Bolivia in a surprise early morning raid on March 13. He was promptly extradited to the U.S., having his first formal hearing on March 20th.

Judge Rossie D. Alston Jr. told Marset, wearing a dark green prison jumpsuit and white sneakers, that he faced up to 20 years in a U.S. prison, followed by three years of supervised release, if convicted of conspiracy to commit money laundering. He may also be fined no less than $500,000.

Prosecutor Anthony T. Aminoff, who heads his district’s narcotics and money laundering unit, told the judge that the two parties wanted a status conference delayed until May 20. In a status conference, both sides report to the judge on progress as the case readies for trial. 

Aminoff said the extra time was needed to continue negotiations because a superseding indictment “is likely.”

A superseding indictment augments the existing indictment and typically adds charges. The announcement is significant because it means Marset, 34, could be charged with drug trafficking or other penalties more serious than the current money laundering charges for moving money through US banks. 

The current indictment refers repeatedly to drug trafficking activity, but does not charge him with trafficking itself.

Described as “a most-wanted fugitive throughout the Southern Cone of South America,” Marset had a $2 million U.S. government bounty on him before his capture.

The U.S. State Department said a multinational law enforcement investigation had “linked a criminal network led by Marset to more than 16 tons of cocaine seized in Europe.”

Marset faces charges in Paraguay for international drug trafficking, criminal association and money laundering. Uruguayan police have linked him to criminal enterprises there but have not yet presented formal changes.

In their indictment, federal prosecutors in Virginia allege he ran a narcotics organization that moved “thousands of kilograms of cocaine, including as many as 10 tons at a time, from South America typically to Europe.”

Bolivia, Paraguay, Uruguay, Brazil, Belgium, the Netherlands, Portugal were among the countries listed by the U.S. Attorney’s Office as trafficking targets. 

The high-profile Uruguayan’s arrest and extradition to the U.S. came after renewed regional anti-narcotics cooperation, just months after the Drug Enforcement Administration resumed operations in Bolivia following a 17-year absence. The operation came after Bolivia’s participation in a March 7 anti-narcotics summit convened by the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump.

The British Virgin Islands cracked open Wednesday its corporate secrecy regime that has made it a go-to jurisdiction for tax evaders and other financial criminals — but there’s a catch.

Breaking with its decades-long policy of total secrecy, BVI authorities may now direct company services agents to provide corporate information upon reviewing requests.

However, the new regulations stipulate that a company’s registered agent must be notified whenever authorities receive such a request. 

Anti-corruption groups say this ruins the element of surprise, acting as an early warning system for bad actors while exposing the identities of the people investigating them — including journalists, and transparency advocates.

“A register that notifies company owners when their information is accessed is not compatible with global transparency efforts,” said Margot Mollat senior researcher at the U.K. chapter of the anti-corruption group Transparency International.

“It will put journalists and civil society actors at serious risk of retaliation and legal intimidation, which in turn will have a chilling effect on any public interest reporting,” she told OCCRP.

Some in the legal industry have defended the new framework as a necessary compromise. 

Ogier Global Law Firm, which advises clients on BVI law, explained in a briefing that the update “represents a significant shift in corporate transparency, evolving from a system once reserved strictly for law enforcement into a more balanced model that aligns with modern international standards.”

Noting that the law aims to protect individual privacy, the firm added: ”This means transparency will only be used where necessary.”

To gain access, an applicant must pay a $75 fee and show credible evidence that their inquiry serves the public interest, such as preventing financial crime. The government will only disclose information for individuals holding at least a 25 percent stake in the business. The applicant can then see the owner’s full legal name, nationality, birth month and year, and specific level of control.

The system includes what Ogier described as “robust check and balances to protect individuals from unnecessary exposure.” 

Once a company is notified of a data request, it has five business days to formally object. That can trigger an appeals process that freezes the release of data, according to the new regulations enacted by authorities in BVI, which is a self-governing British Overseas Territory.

Companies can also apply for advance privacy exemptions if disclosure would expose owners to serious risks like kidnapping, extortion, or violence.

Advocacy groups say the new regulations allow too much leeway for companies to continue to hide information from the public.  

“Companies registered in these Overseas Territories have been used to hide billions of pounds from corruption and embezzlement, avoid sanctions, or launder money linked to drugs, human trafficking and illegal deforestation,” said Mollat of Transparency International. 

“Genuine beneficial ownership disclosure should empower investigators to detect these suspicious activities, not create bureaucratic barriers that protect those with something to hide or tips them off so they can move their assets,” she added.

While transparency advocates view this warning window as a dangerous loophole, BVI Financial Services Commission documents reveal the massive offshore industry actually fought for an even longer 10 to 21-day objection period, citing widespread concerns over media access.

This story was originally published by Grist. Sign up for Grist’s weekly newsletter here.

It’s not just easy to miss, but often downright hard to notice. A simple patch of greenery in a city may seem like a blip in the concrete jungle, but it’s an extremely powerful way to solve a bunch of problems at once: Studies have shown that green spaces improve urbanites’ mental health, make summers more bearable and prevent flooding by soaking up stormwater. 

When these plots are planned — as opposed to letting vacant lots grow wild, which is valuable in its own right — they become extra powerful. You may have even enjoyed one without knowing it: the “pocket garden.” Tucked into spaces accessible to pedestrians, like sidewalks, hospital grounds and campuses, they can be engineered to turn heat-absorbing concrete into air-cooling oases packed with vegetation and seating for people to escape the metropolitan bustle. 

“This increasing prioritization of creating green spaces in unexpected spots and underutilized spaces in communities is not only going to be making our communities more resilient, it’s going to be making people healthier,” said Dan Lambe, chief executive of the nonprofit Arbor Day Foundation, which promotes urban forestry. “A little bit of green goes a long way.”

Pocket gardens aren’t gardens in the agriculturally productive sense, but ornamental grounds. (Though there’s nothing stopping a designer from adding a fruit tree or two.) Ideally, they’re host to native plant species, which bring several benefits. For one, they attract native pollinators like insects and birds, which get a source of food that powers them to go on and fertilize plants elsewhere, like crops on urban farms. And for another, if the vegetation is adapted to a particular region or condition, it’s already used to the local climate — drought-tolerant varieties, for instance, won’t require as much water to survive. Furthermore, choosing native grasses that don’t need mowing can cut down on maintenance costs. And picking trees with big canopies will increase the amount of shade for people to use as refuge from the heat. (Sorry, palm trees, that means you’re disqualified.)

Biodiversity — mixing tree species as opposed to planting 10 of the same kind — is key here. That attracts a broader range of pollinating animals and builds resiliency into the system: If you only plant one variety of tree and a disease shows up, it can spread rapidly.

And speaking of disease, trees have an additional superpower in their ability to scrub urban air of the pollutants that contribute to respiratory problems. In addition, the vegetation of a pocket park releases water vapor, bringing down air temperatures. This mitigates what’s called the urban heat island effect, in which cities absorb the sun’s energy all day and slowly release it into the night. Combined, reduced air pollution and temperatures improve public health. 

There’s also the harder-to-quantify bonus of people getting out of their cars and gathering in public spaces, no matter how diminutive. “It’s actually a transition toward the pedestrian — toward the person — and away from the vehicle,” said Eric Galipo, director of campus planning and urban design at the architecture firm FCA, which has integrated pocket gardens into their projects. (The photo with this story is of one of the firm’s projects, at Newark Beth Israel Medical Center in New Jersey.) “We may not spend as much time together as a society as we used to, and so these are great opportunities for that sort of connection to happen.”

When the rains come, these verdant plots take on another role as an infrastructural asset. As the planet heats up, rainfall increases because a warmer atmosphere can hold more moisture. In response, cities like Los Angeles and Pittsburgh are getting rid of concrete to open up more green spaces, which absorb rainfall, allowing it to seep underground. This reduces pressure on sewer systems that are struggling to handle increasingly heavy deluges. These systems, after all, were designed long ago for a different climate than we’re dealing with today. 

When a city prioritizes green spaces, you can actually hear the difference. Barcelona, Spain, for instance, has been developing so-called superblocks, which aim to improve city life by transforming car infrastructure into walkable spaces. That includes the development of “green axes” (the plural of “axis,” not the tool for chopping) full of vegetation and paths for strolling. A recent study found that after these spaces were pedestrianized and vehicles disappeared, average noise levels fell by 3.1 decibels. (For context, a car traveling at 65 mph from 25 feet away registers at 77 decibels.)

While 3.1 may not seem like much, each increase of 10 decibels means a tenfold rise in loudness. And we have to consider not just the decibels but how the kind of noise changed as Barcelona developed green axes: Revving engines, honking horns, and even the occasional cacophony of a car accident were replaced with voices. As the built environment dramatically changed, so too did the way that folks on foot experienced their surroundings. “If people see green in general, the noise perception tends to change,” said Samuel Nello-Deakin, a postdoctoral researcher at the Autonomous University of Barcelona and lead author of the study. “You think that things are not as noisy as they actually are. So there’s also this interesting interaction … between sort of what you hear and what you see.” In addition, green spaces absorb city racket, keeping it from bouncing off of buildings and pavement, insulating residents from the din. 

With less commotion come still more gains to public health. Noise pollution is an invisible crisis worldwide, as studies link the stress it causes not just to struggles with mental health, but physical problems like hypertension and heart disease. By contrast, pocket parks and other green spaces encourage people to ditch their cars and move their bodies. “There are also physical health benefits from walking, biking and being outside that over a lifetime tend to have a cumulative positive effect on what our society spends in health care,” Galipo said.

So as cities increasingly realize and utilize the power of greenery, the environmental, auditory and social fabric of the urban landscape transforms. “There’s a gravity to this green space that brings people out,” Lambe said. “And all of a sudden, neighbors are connecting, generations are connecting, cultures are connecting. Trees are about the one thing that everybody can agree on.”

The post The Virtues of Urban Pocket Gardens appeared first on Truthdig.

Cambodia has extradited to China another alleged associate of the Prince Group, a Phnom Penh-based conglomerate that is widely accused of having operated cyber-scam centers built on forced labor. 

Chinese state media reported today that Li Xiong arrived in Beijing after being arrested in Cambodia as a “result of joint law enforcement cooperation” between the two countries. 

His extradition follows Prince Group Chairman Chen Zhi, who was arrested and sent to China in January.

Chinese state media described Li Xiong as a “core backbone member of Prince Group’s criminal enterprise.”

He faces charges including operating illegal casinos, fraud, and handling proceeds of crime, according to Chinese state media reports citing the Ministry of Public Security. The charges and allegations of his role in the Prince Group remain unproven.

Aside from being targeted by China, the Prince Group has been sanctioned by the U.S., South Korea and the U.K., which recently froze a number of London properties related to the conglomerate.

Li Xiong has served as chairman of Huione Group, which Chinese authorities allege is a subsidiary of the Prince Group, according to state media.

The U.S. sanctioned Huione Group alongside the Prince Group in October. 

The U.S. Treasury Department accused Huione Group of laundering billions of dollars in illicit funds derived from crimes including “pig butchering” cyber-scams allegedly carried out by the Prince Group. However, the Treasury Department did not directly link the two corporate entities.

Cambodian corporate documents obtained by OCCRP confirm Li Xiong’s role in Huione Group companies. They also show that Hun To, the cousin of Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet, held shares one of the companies, Huione Pay Plc, along with Li Xiong.

Huione Pay told Reuters in 2024 that Hun To’s co-directorship did not include “day-to-day oversight” of company operations. Lawyers who have represented Hun To in Australia did not respond to a request for comment before publication.

Huione Group did not respond before publication to questions sent to company emails about Li Xiong’s arrest and extradition. Cambodia’s Cabinet Office did not respond to a request for comment. 

Cambodia’s corporate registry also shows further business interests Li Xiong has in the country. They include Proteva Insurance PLC, as well as two real estate companies called Cocosili Investment Co Ltd, and Huione Education Co Ltd.

Like other China-born Prince Group associates, Li Xiong obtained Cambodian citizenship, according to the government’s royal gazette. 

OCCRP reported in December on the multiple passports — in different names — held by a man born as Hu Xiaowei, who was a key Prince Group player. Hu Xiaowei and Prince Group Chairman Chen Zhi both obtained Cambodian citizenship, and forged bonds with political and economic elites in the Southeast Asian country.

The Prince Group has said the allegations made by U.S. and U.K. authorities are “baseless and appear aimed at justifying the unlawful seizure of assets worth billions of dollars.”