In January, China's gold market demand remained steady, with upstream gold withdrawals reaching 126 tons, a slight year-on-year increase. Gold bar sales were strong, and jewelry merchants increased restocking before the Spring Festival, boosting gold demand. Gold ETF inflows reached a new high for the start of the year, with asset management scale hitting a new record. The People's Bank of China announced an increase in gold reserves to 2,308 tons.

PA News December 11th - According to Bloomberg, U.S. prosecutors have charged Canadian citizen Nathan Gauvin with orchestrating a fraud scheme that raised over $42 million through false advertising. The scheme targeted individual users on the chat platform Discord, claiming that funds would be invested in traditional finance and cryptocurrency sectors. He used most of the money for investor withdrawals, purchasing luxury jewelry, paying off credit cards, and falsely obtaining $800,000 in credit from fintech companies for personal expenses. From May 2022 to October 2024, Gauvin and others lured investors to invest in Gray Digital Capital Management Inc. and its fund Gray.

The Supreme Court of British Columbia, Canada, has approved the forfeiture of cash and gold worth approximately $1 million linked to QuadrigaCX co-founder Michael Patryn, transferring ownership to the provincial government. This action is regarded as the province's largest and most significant enforcement operation to date under the "Unexplained Wealth Order" (UWO) framework, highlighting the region's stringent crackdown on money laundering activities and assets of unknown origin. According to the Vancouver Sun, Patryn did not contest the forfeiture order, allowing the court to proceed with liquidating the assets previously seized. These assets include 45 gold bars, luxury watches, jewelry, and over $250,000 in cash. Court documents obtained by CoinDesk indicate that the civil forfeiture judgment will officially take effect in September 2025, granting British Columbia full ownership of the items seized in March 2024.

PANews, December 3—According to DL News, Russian prosecutors are seeking to confiscate a large amount of luxury assets from fugitive secret service official Georgy Satyukov. He is accused of accepting bribes worth $184 million in Bitcoin and $30 million in Ethereum from operators of the now-defunct WEX cryptocurrency exchange. Investigators have identified assets worth $29.6 million allegedly linked to Satyukov's bribery case. Prosecutors claim Satyukov used illicit funds to purchase 13 Russian apartments, several non-residential properties in St. Petersburg, a villa in the UAE, and a million-dollar property in Saratov registered under his brother's name. The investigation also found two Porsche Cayenne Turbos registered to him, seven Patek Philippe watches, and other jewelry with a total value exceeding $1.3 million. His family’s bank accounts still hold over $15 million in cash and

BlockBeats news, on November 21, the U.S. Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) disclosed that the U.S. Treasury announced sanctions against former Canadian Olympic athlete Ryan James Wedding and his drug trafficking organization. Wedding is accused of leading an international drug trafficking network, and the sanctions list includes 9 individuals and 9 entities designated as Specially Designated Nationals (SDN). The sanctions list contains multiple crypto assets addresses, involving Bitcoin, Ether, and various Blockchain networks. The sanctioned individuals include several suspects from Mexico, Italy, the UK, and Canada, and the related entities span multiple industries including jewelry manufacturing, private security, fuel wholesale, and motorcycle sales.