Police to get powers to seize and destroy machetes and zombie knives in further crackdown
More “zombie-style” knives and machetes will be banned and the police will be given more powers to seize and destroy them, under plans announced by the Home Office.
A new offence will also be introduced for possessing bladed articles “with the intention to endanger life or cause fear of violence”.
The maximum sentence for the importation, manufacturing, possession and sale of the weapons will be two years, the Home Office announced.
The government said the measures, first proposed in April, will be legislated “when parliament allows” and after a public consultation has taken place.
The possession of so-called “zombie” knives, which the government defines as a blade with “a cutting edge, a serrated edge and images or words suggesting it is used for violence”, was made illegal in 2016.
Under the new measures, the Home Office said the definition of a zombie knife would be expanded to include any bladed weapon more than eight inches long with a plain-cutting edge and sharp pointed end that also has either a serrated cutting edge, more than one hole in the blade or multiple sharp points like spikes.
The government hopes the changes will close a loophole which has allowed some dangerous weapons to be sold without breaking the law by removing certain banned features.
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Recent figures revealed that the number of fatal stabbings in England and Wales was at its highest level since records began more than 76 years ago.
The Office for National Statistics said 282 homicides were committed using a knife or sharp instrument in the year to March 2022 – a 19% rise compared with the previous year and the highest annual total since records began in 1946.
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Pastor Lorraine Jones Burrell speaks passionately about police and knife crime.
Some 51 teenagers aged between 13 and 19 were among the victims.
Labour’s shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper said the newly prohibited weapons “should have been banned years ago”.
“This is the sixth time in seven years that the Conservatives have promised to outlaw zombie knives,” she said.
“Yet even now they are still failing to close the loopholes that mean they can still be sold online. Time and again the Tories have been hopelessly weak and slow to tackle this serious and dangerous crime.”
Currently, the law stipulates that if police find a machete or other legal blade in somebody’s home they are not allowed to seize or act on it, even if they believe the knives could be used criminally.
But police will now be given new powers to seize and destroy knives found on private premises if there are “reasonable grounds to believe the blade will be used in a serious crime”, the Home Office confirmed.
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The Sentencing Council will also be asked to consider amending guidelines for the possession of bladed articles and offensive weapons so that these are treated more seriously than possession of non-prohibited weapons.
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The Minister said serious violence is down by 41% since 2010, but Chris Philp says there is ‘a lot more to do’.
Some machetes and similar knives can have “legitimate uses”, such as for gardening, but the Home Office warned criminals are “buying, selling and using larger bladed articles as weapons to intimidate and cause others serious harm”.
The department said specific exemptions will be made for “legitimate articles” such as objects of historical importance and those that are hand-made, in order to avoid negative effects on the antiques market.
Policing minister Chris Philp said the newly-prohibited weapons “serve no other purpose but to inflate criminal egos and endanger lives” and there is “no reason” to own them.
“That is why we are banning these knives and making sentencing more severe, so our communities can be reassured that this violent criminality will face the punishments they deserve, and lives will be saved,” he said.
Tulip Siddiq has told Sky News her “lawyers are ready” to handle any formal questions about allegations she is involved in corruption in Bangladesh.
Asked whether she regrets apparent links with the Bangladeshi Awami League political party, Ms Siddiq said “why don’t you look at my legal letter and see if I have any questions to answer… [the Bangladeshi authorities] have not once contacted me and I’m waiting to hear from them”.
The London MP resigned as a Treasury minister in January after being named in several corruption inquiries in Bangladesh.
In her first public comments since leaving government, Ms Siddiq said “there’s been allegations for months on end and no one has contacted me”.
Last month, the interim leader of Bangladesh told Sky News the MP had “wealth left behind” in the country “and should be made responsible”.
Lawyers acting for Ms Siddiq wrote to the Bangladeshi Anti Corruption Commission (ACC) several weeks ago saying the allegations were “false and vexatious”.
The letter said the ACC must put questions to Ms Siddiq “by no later than 25 March 2025” or “we shall presume that there are no legitimate questions to answer”.
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Staff from the NCA visited Bangladesh as part of initial work to support the interim government in the country.
In a post online today, the former minister said the deadline had expired and the authorities had not replied.
Sky News has approached the Bangladeshi government for comment.
The allegations against Ms Siddiq are focused on links to her aunt Sheikh Hasina – who served as the prime minister of Bangladesh for 20 years.
Ms Hasina was forced to flee the country in August following weeks of deadly protests.
She is accused of becoming an autocrat, with politically-motivated arrests, extra-judicial killings and other abuses allegedly happening on her watch. Hasina claims it’s all a political witch hunt.
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Ms Siddiq was found to have lived in several London properties that had links back to the Awami League political party that her aunt still leads.
She referred herself to the prime minister’s standards adviser Sir Laurie Magnus who said he had “not identified evidence of improprieties” but added it was “regrettable” Ms Siddiq had not been more alert to the “potential reputational risks” of the ties to her aunt.
Ms Siddiq said continuing in her role would be “a distraction” for the government but insisted she had done nothing wrong.
Cryptocurrency exchange OKX reportedly hired former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo to advise it over the federal probe that resulted in the firm pleading guilty to several violations and agreeing to pay $505 million in fines and penalties.
Cuomo, a New York-registered attorney, advised OKX on legal issues stemming from the probe sometime after August 2021 when he resigned as New York overnor, Bloomberg reported on April 2, citing people familiar with the matter.
“He spoke with company executives regularly and counseled them on how to respond to the criminal investigation,” Bloomberg said.
The Seychelles-based firm pled guilty to operating an unlicensed money-transmitting business in violation of US Anti-Money Laundering laws on Feb. 24 and agreed to pay $84 million worth of penalties while forfeiting $421 million worth of fees earned from mostly institutional clients.
The breaches occurred from 2018 to 2024 despite OKX having an official policy preventing US persons from transacting on its crypto exchange since 2017, the Department of Justice noted at the time.
A spokesperson for Cuomo, Rich Azzopardi, told Bloomberg that Cuomo has been providing private legal services representing individuals and corporations on a variety of matters since resigning as New York governor.
“He has not represented clients before a New York city or state agency and routinely recommends former colleagues for positions,” Azzopardi added.
OKX reportedly wasn’t willing to comment on its relationships with outside firms.
Cuomo also influenced OKX to make executive appointments: Bloomberg
Cuomo, who is now running for mayor of New York City, also advised OKX to appoint his friend US Attorney Linda Lacewell to OKX’s board of directors, Bloomberg said.
Lacewell, a former superintendent of the New York Department of Financial Services, was added to the board in 2024 and was named OKX’s new chief legal officer on April 1, according to a recent company statement.
Source: Linda Lacewell
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After the investigation concluded, OKX said it would seek out a compliance consultant to remedy the issues stemming from the federal probe and bolster its regulatory compliance program.
“Our vision is to make OKX the gold standard of global compliance at scale across different markets and their respective regulatory bodies,” OKX CEO Star Xu said in a Feb. 24 X post.
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United States President Donald Trump signed an executive order establishing reciprocal tariffs on trading partners and a 10% baseline tariff on all imports from all countries.
The reciprocal levies on will be approximately half of what trading partners charge for US imports, Trump said. For example, China currently has a tariff of 67% on US imports, so US reciprocal tariffs on Chinese goods will be 34%. Trump also announced a standard 25% tariff on all automobile imports.
Trump told the media that tariffs would return the country to economic prosperity seen in previous centuries:
“From 1789 to 1913, we were a tariff-backed nation. The United States was proportionately the wealthiest it has ever been. So wealthy, in fact, that in the 1880s, they established a commission to decide what they were going to do with the vast sums of money they were collecting.”
“Then, in 1913, for reasons unknown to mankind, they established the income tax so that citizens, rather than foreign countries, would start paying,” Trump said.
Full breakdown of reciprocal tariffs by country. Source: Cointelegraph
Trump presented the tariffs through the lens of economic protectionism and hinted at returning to the economic policies of the 19th century by using them to replace the income tax.
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Trump proposes eliminating federal income tax and replacing it with tariff revenue
Trump proposed the idea of abolishing the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and funding the federal government exclusively through trade tariffs while still on the campaign trail in October 2024.
According to accounting automation company Dancing Numbers, Trump’s plan could save each American taxpayer $134,809-$325,561 in taxes throughout their lives.
US President Donald Trump addresses the media about reciprocal trade tariffs at the April 2 press event. Source: Fox 4 Dallas
The higher range of the tax savings estimate will only occur if other wage-based taxes are eliminated at the state and municipal levels.
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, who assumed office in February, also voiced support for replacing the IRS with the “External Revenue Service.”
Lutnick said that the US government cannot balance a budget yet consistently demands more from its citizens every year. Tariffs will also protect American workers and strengthen the US economy, he said.
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