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 […]

Reported by MARTIN YOUNG The new AI-powered tool, customized specifically to target crypto exchanges and financial platforms represents “a new level of sophistication” in fraud, says cybersecurity firm Cato.   A new AI-powered deepfake tool called ProKYC that allows nefarious actors to bypass high-level Know Your Customer (KYC) measures on crypto exchanges demonstrates a “new level […]

Reported by Nneoma Omeje Criminal networks in Southeast Asia are increasingly using the messaging app Telegram to coordinate their activities, reshaping the dynamics of organized crime, according to a report released by the United Nations on Monday. The report follows legal charges against Telegram’s founder and CEO, Pavel Durov, in France, where he is accused of enabling […]

Reported by Kristen E. Larson The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (“FinCEN”) issued last month an in-depth report on check fraud stemming from mail theft (“Report”).  This is a pernicious and expanding problem.  The Report follows upon a joint alert issued by FinCEN and the U.S. Postal Service (“USPS”) in February 2023, on which we blogged. Mail theft-related check […]