Reported by Christina Goldbaum (Excerpt shared below. To read full report, go to: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/19/world/americas/hezbollah-venezuela-ties.html) How did Hezbollah get involved in Venezuela? Hezbollah’s connection stemmed from the relationship between Venezuela and Iran. Two oil-rich countries under American sanctions, they were bound by anti-American ideology and helped each other evade U.S. sanctions. Iran and Venezuela have maintained economic […]

Reported by Anas Hassan (Excerpt shared below. To read full report, go to: https://cryptonews.com/news/bipartisan-push-to-remove-developer-safeguards-from-market-structure-bill/) Senate Judiciary leaders Chuck Grassley and senators have warned that a provision in Senate Banking Chair Tim Scott’s crypto bill could curtail law enforcement’s ability to prosecute money laundering and other illicit financial crimes. The provision would exempt certain blockchain software […]

Reported by U.S. Attorney’s Office, Eastern District of Virginia (originally published via https://www.justice.gov/usao-edva/pr/venezuelan-national-charged-laundering-approximately-billion-dollars-illicit-funds) A Venezuelan national has been charged by criminal complaint in the Eastern District of Virginia with conspiracy to launder money. “This case involves the alleged laundering approximately a billion dollars – a scale of criminal conduct that poses a profound threat to […]

Reported by Chris Newlands (Excerpt shared below. To read full report, go to: https://www.thebanker.com/content/232f9b4b-aca5-4844-a68c-2a5ac06547a0) Shares in Swedbank jumped to an all-time high when markets opened on Thursday after the US Department of Justice closed a money-laundering probe into the bank without enforcement. The Swedish bank has been under investigation by various US authorities over its alleged failure […]

Reported by Kelly Phillips Erb (Summary shared below. To read full report, go to: https://www.forbes.com/sites/kellyphillipserb/2026/01/14/treasury-turns-a-little-known-financial-weapon-on-minnesota-benefits-fraud/) The U.S. Department of the Treasury has launched an aggressive federal response to alleged government benefits fraud in Minnesota, using a rarely used anti-money-laundering tool to enhance financial transparency and investigations. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced that, beginning February 12 […]

Reported by Tico Times (Excerpt shared below. To read full report, go to: https://ticotimes.net/2026/01/12/trial-begins-in-panama-over-alleged-odebrecht-bribe-laundering) Former Panamanian president Ricardo Martinelli, now in asylum in Colombia, and around 20 other defendants went on trial Monday in Panama on accusations of money laundering linked to bribes paid by Brazilian construction giant Odebrecht. Odebrecht pleaded guilty in 2016 in a U.S. […]

Reported by Brian Danga (Excerpt shared below. To read full report, go to: https://www.theblock.co/post/384753/crypto-crime-150-billion-usd-2025-state-actors-scale-onchain-chainalysis) The professionalization of the illicit onchain ecosystem reached a new quantitative peak in 2025 as sovereign states integrated with established criminal supply chains to bypass global financial restrictions. According to a new Chainalysis report shared with The Block on Jan. 8, […]

Reported by WorkFusion and Compliance Week (Summary featured below. To read full report, go to: https://www.workfusion.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Financial-Services-Roadmap-Know-Your-Customer-E-Book_WorkFusion-Compliance-Week.pdf) KYC is no longer a static compliance checkpoint but a scalable risk-intelligence function embedded across the customer lifecycle. As highlighted in WorkFusion’s The Financial Services Roadmap: Know Your Customer, expanding sanctions regimes, opaque ownership structures, and surging alert volumes […]

Reported by FinCEN (Dec 31, 2025) Today, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) issued a final rule to extend the effective date of the rule establishing Anti-Money Laundering/Countering the Financing of Terrorism Program and Suspicious Activity Report Filing Requirements for Registered Investment Advisers and Exempt Reporting Advisers (IA AML Rule) from January […]

Reported by Christiaan Triebert and Anatoly Kurmanae (Summary featured below. To read full report, go to: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/05/world/americas/oil-tankers-venezuela-blockade.html) At least 16 oil tankers sanctioned by the United States appear to have fled Venezuelan ports in a coordinated effort to evade a sweeping U.S. naval blockade on the country’s oil exports. Satellite imagery shows the vessels departing shortly after […]