Reported by Nate Nelson Cybercriminals are laundering stolen funds through ordinary people, thanks to a small ecosystem of user-friendly apps that can turn any mobile user into an unwitting money mule. A new report from Cloud SEK details one such app: “XHelper,” an Android platform that connects scammers with citizens of India, whose job is […]
Reported by Matt Egan, CNN Uncle Sam has quietly deployed a new secret weapon designed to catch bad guys trying to steal from taxpayers: artificial intelligence. Starting around late 2022, the Treasury Department began using enhanced fraud-detection methods powered by AI to spot fraud, CNN has learned. The strategy mirrors what is already being done […]
Reported by SWI swissinfo.ch Switzerland and Panama are to cooperate more closely in the fight against international crime. After the Senate in December, on Tuesday the House of Representatives unanimously gave the go-ahead for a new treaty. For the first time, requests for mutual assistance can be submitted electronically. This is the first time that […]
From strip malls in Houston suburbs to beach houses in Brownsville, Texas is an enormous haven for money launderers. But for a long time, nobody has seemed to be in any hurry to do anything to stop dirty money flowing into the Lone Star State. Could that be changing? For several years, the U.S. Department […]
Reported by Dillon De Shong The British Virgin Islands was deemed to be largely compliant with international laws that govern money laundering, tax evasion and terrorism financing. The Caribbean Financial Action Task Force (CFATF) published its Mutual Evaluation Report of the Virgin Islands today where it highlighted the BVI’s efforts to make itself compliant. The […]
Reported by Sam Rucker Hamas’s international financial web is now “immune fromIsraeli shells”, experts believe – meaning Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will struggle to achieve his goal of destroying the militant group. Stephen Reimer, an associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute (Rus) specialising in financial crime, told i that “the total destruction of Hamas” would […]
Reported by Laurence Norman and Georgi Kantchev Two years after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Western sanctions have failed in their most important task—stopping the Kremlin’s war machine. Russia has used shell companies and neighboring countries to buy components used in weapons. And it has obtained a large number of old vessels operating under opaque ownership […]
Reported by MATTHEW KARNITSCHNIG The United Arab Emirates is set to receive a stamp of approval from a global money laundering watchdog, despite concerns of some countries who say the Gulf state has failed to do enough to tackle illicit activity. A written evaluation by the Paris-based Financial Action Task Force (FATF), described to POLITICO, […]
Reported by Alan Feuer and Natalie Kitroeff American law enforcement officials spent years looking into allegations that allies of Mexico’s president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, met with and took millions of dollars from drug cartels after he took office, according to U.S. records and three people familiar with the matter. The inquiry, which has not […]
Reported by John O’Donnell and Tom Sims Austria’s financial regulator FMA has been investigating Raiffeisen Bank International over anti-money-laundering failures, the Austrian bank said on Thursday in its annual report. The investigation is focused on the so-called know-your-customer rules, the bank said, referring to a key safety guard to prevent money laundering. It comes as […]
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