Venezuela’s assembly banned Nicolas Maduro’s petro cryptocurrency Tuesday, declaring it an attempt to illegally mortgage the country’s oil reserves in a time of financial crisis, reports Reuters.

Authorities charged on Thursday a former executive at the Singapore branch of the BP oil company with taking US$ 3.95 million in bribes.

Unaoil, a Monaco-based oil-services company, denied allegations posed by Fairfax Media and The Huffington Post that it was at the center of a multi-billion dollar bribery scheme and claimed it was the victim of extortion.

Joining the war of words escalating between Turkey and Russia, the Iraqi Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) deny that the satellite images Russian defense officials displayed at a briefing in Moscow last week showed Islamic State (IS) militants selling oil to Turkey.

A court in Kyiv has ruled to freeze 14 offshore bank accounts linked to Ukraine’s fugitive businessman and youngest self-declared billionaire, Serhiy Kurchenko, it was revealed this week.