Reported by Sarah Maslin Nir (Summary version of report featured below) Lisa Schiff, a prominent art adviser, pleaded guilty to wire fraud for stealing $6.5 million from clients who trusted her to buy art on their behalf. Schiff, whose clientele included high-profile collectors like Leonardo DiCaprio, was accused of diverting funds meant for art acquisitions […]

Reported by The U.S. Department of the Treasury and CoinTelegraph The U.S. Department of the Treasury announced significant progress in combating fraud and improper payments, recovering over $4 billion in fiscal year 2024—an increase from $652.7 million in the previous year. This success is largely attributed to the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) and data-driven […]

Reported by Associated Press A Vietnamese real estate tycoon was convicted on Thursday of fraudulently obtaining property worth billions of dollars and sentenced to life in prison, in a case that has been a centrepiece of the government’s crackdown on corruption. Truong My Lan was already convicted in April by the same Ho Chi Minh City […]

Reported by CHAVA GOURARIE The U.S. Treasury Department has renewed a program to root out money laundering in certain high-end property markets beginning Wednesday, the agency announced. Under the program administered by the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), certain investment advisors and real estate brokers are required to report the real identities of buyers and […]

Reported by Isabella Cota Leaked Panama Papers documents reveal a new connection between an accused money launderer and a sprawling financial network that police claim is linked to one of Brazil’s largest criminal organizations. As part of an ongoing operation against the suspect network, authorities have seized and frozen millions of dollars of what they […]

Reported by GIOVANNA FAGGIONATO The Financial Action Task Force (FATF), the intergovernmental organization that leads the fight against money laundering and terrorism financing, will decide whether to put Russia on its blacklist next week, according to a confidential document seen by POLITICO. The Paris-based body regularly evaluates countries according to their commitment to combatting money […]

Reported by By Daniel Knight and Kithmin Ranamukhaarachchi Around the world, the fight against money laundering and terrorism financing is ramping up in response to the emergence of ever-more sophisticated criminal networks and infrastructure. The Financial Action Task Force, a global intergovernmental organisation, established a set of standards and provided recommendations to all governments to consider and implement […]

Reported by Matthew Goldstein It has been 15 years since Thomas Swingle first learned that about $1 million of his family’s savings had gone up in smoke, after the financier Robert Allen Stanford was exposed for having sold billions in fraudulent certificates of deposit to investors around the world. The memory of those days is […]

Reported by Jason Henry It took two months of near daily conversations, of first cultivating trust and then love, before he walked into her trap. Two months of phone calls, text messages and video chats. Two months of sharing their life stories and their dreams about the future before he took the bait — an […]

Reported by Norton Rose Fulbright In this edition of Regulation Around the World we catch up on anti-money laundering (AML) developments that have occurred in the past six months. At the international level, the Financial Action task Force (FATF) has been focussing on virtual asset service providers (VASPs) and wire transfers. It has also made changes to its so-called […]