Reported by Sam Cavanaugh Earlier today, the Department of Justiceannounced that Jin Hua Zhang, a 36-year-old man from Staten Island, New York, plead guilty to charges related to his role as the leader of an international money laundering conspiracy. The intricate operation involved not only money laundering, but also the distribution of large quantities of […]
Opinion from Financial Times If a currency reflects a country’s economic health, Russia’s banks should be in intensive care. Yet the country’s largest retail lender, Sberbank, is trumpeting a return on equity that western counterparts can only dream of. The rouble has dropped 20 per cent against the dollar in the past four months. Russia’s […]
Reported by Chris Dolmetsch A Russian man with ties to the Kremlin was ordered by a US judge to serve nine years in prison for leading an insider-trading ringthat earned tens of millions of dollars by hacking into systems used by public companies to file earnings reports. Vladislav Klyushin, 42, was sentenced Thursday by US District […]
Reported by Jeffrey A. Sonnenfeld and Michal Wyrebkowski (Shortened version of original report is presented below) The economic blockade of Russia has proven effective thanks to a combination of government sanctions and the exit of over 1,100 multinational firms from the country. However, President Putin’s war campaign persists, partly because he can tap into the […]
Reported by Patrick Jack A fifth of UK universities still accept cash for tuition fees despite the risk of it being a method of laundering criminal money, according to new research. A report from Cardiff University and the University of the West of England (UWE) says that a significant number of providers are failing to provide staff and students with guidance […]
Reported by Jonathan Browning and Upmanyu Trivedi A fintech owner in London is facing allegations that he helped notorious drug traffickers attempt to launder hundreds of millions of euros through a crypto exchange platform on a scale rarely seen by European prosecutors. Authorities in Belgium are seeking the extradition of Caio Marchesani from the UK […]
Reported by Libby Bloxom, Jonathan Epstein, and Alan Winston Granwell of Holland & Knight LLP The Corporate Transparency Act (CTA), enacted by Congress as part of the Anti-Money Laundering Act of 2020, for the first time under federal law, requires the establishment of a centralized, national beneficial ownership information (BOI) registry. The purpose of the […]
Reported by Polina Ivanova The EU’s highest court has ruled that sanctions against a Russian tech executive should be lifted, the first time it has revoked measures against a businessman sanctioned over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Alexander Shulgin, former chief executive of ecommerce platform Ozon, had joined dozens of other members of Russia’s elite in […]
Reported by Agence France-Presse in Stockholm Criminal gangs behind a rise in bombings and shootings in Sweden in recent years are using fake Spotify streams to launder money, a Swedish newspaper reported on Tuesday. Criminal networks have for several years been using money from drug deals, robberies, fraud and contract killings to pay for false Spotifystreams of songs […]
Reported by Owen Walker in London and Cheng Lengin Hong Kong Chinese lenders have stepped in to extend billions of dollars to Russian banks as western institutions pulled back their operations in the country during the first year of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. The Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, Bank of China, China Construction […]
Financial Crime News Briefs 