Reported by KEN UNDERHILL (Excerpt shared below. To read full report, go to: https://www.esecurityplanet.com/threats/the-dark-side-of-luxury-brands-fraud-and-laundering/) Haute couture may be showcased under chandeliers and velvet ropes, but its underground counterpart operates in Telegram channels, crypto wallets, and dark web storefronts.  What looks like a niche problem of fake handbags is, in reality, a sprawling shadow economy where luxury goods […]

Reported by MASON BOYCOTT-OWEN (Excerpt shared below. To read full report, go to: https://www.politico.eu/article/world-money-launder-are-shifting-crypto-uk-report-warns/) Western governments are being urged to clamp down on cryptocurrency as new research suggests $350 billion has been laundered by criminals and hostile states using the technology in the past two decades. A new report for the Henry Jackson Society think […]

Reported by Vidhya Edwards Munnangi (Excerpt shared below. To read full report, go to: https://www.privatebankerinternational.com/news/efg-luxembourg-offices-raided/) Authorities in Luxembourg searched the offices of EFG Bank Luxembourg as part of an ongoing investigation initiated in 2025. The probe, led by judicial officials in the Grand Duchy, is focused on suspected money laundering activities and failures in anti-terrorism […]

Reported by David Yaffe-Bellany and Michael Forsythe (Excerpt shared below. To read full report, go to: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/24/technology/richard-blumenthal-iran-binance-inquiry.html) A top Democrat on the Senate Homeland Security committee opened an inquiry on Tuesday into concerns about possible sanctions violations raised by internal investigators at Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange. Citing reports in The New York Times and two other outlets, […]

Reported by AMICHAI STEIN, IDAN KWELLER (Excerpt shared below. To read full report, go to: https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/iran-news/article-888283) Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was assassinated in an Israeli strike on Tehran, with his body found under the rubble caused by an Israeli airstrike, senior Israeli officials were informed on Saturday evening. Documentation of Khamenei’s body was reportedly […]

Report by U.S. Department of the Treasury The U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) proposed a rule that, if finalized, would sever MBaer Merchant Bank AG (MBaer’s) access to the U.S. financial system as a result of its financial support to illicit actors linked to Russia and Iran.  If finalized, the […]

Reported by Karen Freifeld (Excerpt shared below. To read full report, go to: https://www.reuters.com/world/china/nvidias-ai-chip-sale-bytedance-hinges-conditions-set-by-trump-administration-2026-02-04/) The Trump administration is willing to allow China’s ByteDance to buy Nvidia’s H200 chips, but the AI chipmaker has not agreed to proposed conditions for their use, according to a person familiar with the matter. The U.S. said it would approve […]

Reported by Ashish Dibouliya (Summary shared below. To read full report, go to: https://www.forbes.com/councils/forbestechcouncil/2026/02/24/federated-data-governance-the-next-frontier-in-anti-money-laundering/) Money laundering has evolved into a cross-institutional problem, yet most anti-money laundering (AML) systems remain confined within individual financial institutions. Criminal networks deliberately distribute transactions across multiple banks, jurisdictions, and channels so that each transaction appears legitimate in isolation. This creates […]

Reported by TRM Labs (Excerpt shared below. To read full report, go to: https://www.trmlabs.com/resources/blog/how-ai-is-changing-the-scale-and-speed-of-crypto-fraud) Artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming crypto-enabled fraud from a labor-constrained enterprise into an industrialized, machine-scaled ecosystem.  In 2025, illicit crypto volume reached an all-time high of USD 158 billion, increasing nearly 145% year over year. Within that broader landscape, scam-related activity […]

Reported by Christopher Miller (Excerpt shared below. To read full report, go to: https://www.ft.com/content/95506e97-b71a-44a5-9479-66ee55ad4848) Ukraine’s former energy minister, a one-time close ally of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, has been charged by anti-corruption authorities after being detained as he tried to flee the country.  The National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (Nabu) on Monday said a former energy minister was […]