Good morning. Babak Zanjani had been on death row for years before Iranian authorities suddenly decided to release him last year. He had talents that would soon be put to use.

• Evasion expert: Before his arrest for alleged corruption, Zanjani had become one of Iran’s wealthiest men and its most famous sanctions buster by helping the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps evade restrictions to sell billions of dollars of oil and bring the proceeds back home—often in the form of gold bullion.
   
• Back in the lineup: Now, the 55-year-old Zanjani has again emerged at the forefront of Iranian efforts to skirt sanctions, accused by U.S. authorities of using cryptocurrency and international connections to move money for the regime and help fund its regional militias.
   
• Crypto funds: Two crypto exchanges connected to Zanjani—called Zedcex and Zedxion—have processed over $94 billion in transactions since 2022, including for wallets linked to the Revolutionary Guard, according to the U.S. Treasury, which imposed sanctions on him in January. Zanjani has denied the allegations. The Treasury also designated the two exchanges “terror assets” and said Zanjani had laundered money and provided funding for Revolutionary Guard projects.
   
• Public statements: Zanjani has spoken openly on social media and in interviews about helping Iran skirt Western sanctions, casting himself as an “economic soldier” for the regime. “Even a small economic structure is more powerful than any warship,” Zanjani said on X recently. “But today it has become clear that structuring the economy…can put a country on par with the superpowers.” Asked for comment for this article, Zanjani denied that he was using cryptocurrency exchanges to transfer money to the Revolutionary Guard, calling it a “fake report.”

See also: Iran War Takes a Dangerous Turn as Fighting Erupts in Hormuz

She blew the whistle on Deutsche Bank to the SEC. Her award: $0.

Desiree Fixler was the kind of Wall Street insider who regulators hoped to recruit by paying whistleblowers to tell them about wrongdoing.

She had been an executive at Deutsche Bank involved with products branded as ESG, a term that appealed to investors worried about environmental, social and corporate-governance risks. She went public with claims the bank didn’t adhere to its goal of fusing ESG into all investment decisions and became a witness for the Securities and Exchange Commission, which fined the bank’s asset-management arm $19 million in 2023.

Whistleblowers can receive millions of dollars for their work on an SEC case, netting between 10% and 30% of the fines collected. But Fixler learned last month that her reward was zero. The regulator denied her application, saying investigators first learned about her claims from the news media, instead of her going to the SEC first.

California wants to throw the book at State Farm over wildfire claims.

California officials took legal action Monday against State Farm, accusing the insurer of unlawfully delaying, denying and underpaying home-insurance claims from survivors of last year’s Los Angeles wildfires.

The state is seeking millions of dollars in damages, the highest penalty sought this century following a wildfire disaster, the California department of insurance said Monday. Its legal filing also seeks the power to suspend State Farm’s license to operate in the state for up to a year.

• The U.S. Justice Department filed a suit seeking to stop Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison from pursuing a case against Exxon Mobil, Koch Industries and the American Petroleum Institute over the effects of climate change, Risk Journal reports (free link).
   
• The Securities and Exchange Commission is moving to settle a lawsuit against Elon Musk over allegations that he failed to timely disclose his purchase of shares in Twitter four years ago as he took control of the social-media network he later renamed X.
   
• The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority in the U.S. has launched an inquiry asking about Morgan Stanley's unlicensed junior investment bankers in Hungary working on deals for clients in the U.S. and Europe.
   
• China escalated its fight against the U.S. over Iranian oil, defying American sanctions in a show of resistance ahead of President Trump’s visit to Beijing planned for next week.

White House officials discuss assessing AI models that pose security risks

The White House is weighing a new government review process for artificial-intelligence tools that the government deems to pose cybersecurity risks, a move that could further expand its oversight of AI in response to Anthropic’s powerful Mythos model.

The White House is considering a cybersecurity-focused executive order that could include formalizing a government oversight group to create standards for the most powerful AI models, such as Mythos, people familiar with the discussions said. The goal is to protect consumers and businesses from cyberattacks and other disruptions caused by the premature release of such models, and a range of ideas are being considered, the people said.

Anthropic and FIS are building an AI agent to help banks police financial crimes.

An AI bot may soon be policing millions of bank accounts for financial crimes.

Anthropic and Fidelity National Information Services, or FIS, the financial software provider that underpins a swath of the financial system, are preparing to announce a partnership to develop new artificial-intelligence tools for banks, executives told The Wall Street Journal.

• President Trump’s desire to end the Iran war is being put to the test after Tehran fired at American warships on Monday and violently disrupted a U.S. effort to revive shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.
   
• Iran has a legion of attack drones that are serving as a significant force multiplier. And the U.S. Navy has so far decided not to send warships to escort tankers and other vessels trapped in the Persian Gulf.
   
• The European Union’s top trade negotiator is expected to meet his U.S. counterpart in Paris on Tuesday after U.S. President Trump said he would raise tariffs on cars from the bloc.
   
• Soaring cattle prices continue to weigh on Tyson Foods’ bottom line, as the meatpacking giant tries to offset rising livestock costs through higher profits from its chicken business.
   
• U.S. cities are facing huge liabilities that remain invisible on their books: dilapidated roads, bridges and buildings.
   
• Older Americans are sitting on $110 trillion of wealth. Their heirs might not get it anytime soon.
   
• The European Central Bank could hike interest rates at its meeting next month should eurozone inflation continue to pick up due to the impact of the Iran war, Germany’s central bank governor said Monday.
   
• Amazon.com thinks its next AWS is in its warehouses. The e-commerce giant is trying to do for logistics what its Amazon Web Services unit did for cloud computing with a new business called Amazon Supply Chain Services.
   
• HSBC set aside $400 million relating to an alleged fraud in private markets in the U.K., marring its quarterly results. The bank gave few details beyond saying the provision reflected a “fraud-related, secondary, securitisation exposure with a financial sponsor in the U.K.”

The Dow Jones Risk Journal Summit London on May 7 will convene senior business professionals for discussions on a range of corporate risks including supply chains, artificial intelligence, geopolitics and financial crime. Speakers include: Kathy Wengel, EVP, Chief Technical Operations and Risk Officer, Johnson & Johnson; Nish Imthiyaz, Global Privacy and Responsible AI Counsel, Vodafone; and Will Mayes, Chief Executive, Cyber Monitoring Centre.

Request a complimentary invitation here using the code COMPLIMENTARY. Attendance is limited, and all requests are subject to approval.

• Justice Samuel Alito on Monday temporarily restored full access to the abortion pill mifepristone, suspending for now a lower-court ruling that barred doctors from sending the drug through the mail without first seeing a patient in person.
   
• Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is announcing steps that he said are aimed at helping wean some Americans off psychiatric medications, including antidepressants.
   
• Coronado was “heaven on earth.” Then as much as 30 million gallons a day of Tijuana waste turned its legendary beaches into a no-go zone.
   
• A string of cities across America’s Sunbelt are emerging as graduate-hiring hot spots in an otherwise challenging job market for young professionals, an exclusive analysis shows.
   
• The second week of a blockbuster trial between Elon Musk and OpenAI kicked off Monday with a series of questions about the finances of the startup’s president, Greg Brockman.