Reported by Kristen E. Larson & Kaley Schafer In February 2024, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) entered into consent orders with two banks who partner with fintechs to offer “banking as a service” (BaaS) related to safety and soundness, compliance with applicable laws, and third party oversight. BaaS refers to arrangements in which banks integrate their […]
Reported by David Wharton and Nathan Fenno For all its complexities, all its twists and turns, the gambling scandal that has engulfed Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani raises a simple question. In this era of DraftKings and FanDuel, when so many people across the nation can place wagers with a few taps on the phone, why would anyone […]
Reported by Darby Sparks A lawsuit against the Bank of Utah alleging they aided in a multimillion dollar Ponzi scheme has added a new name to the list. The suit claims Vice President and Senior Trust Officer Jodi Buckner was directly responsible for aiding Stephen Swensen in his theft by not reporting her suspicions of fraud. A […]
Reported by Chidirim Ndeche Binance’s operation in Africa’s biggest cryptocurrency market is under intense scrutiny, with Nigerian authorities accusing the crypto giant and a host of other exchanges of infractions including currency manipulation and facilitating transfers of illicit funds. With one Binance executive in custody in Nigeria, and a second having fled the country after having been detained, […]
Reported by SAFAALHARATHY An investigative report broadcast on the Estonian television program “Eyewitness” revealed that millions of euros belonging to the Libyan state, which were held in the Central Bank of Libya branch in Benghazi, ended up being laundered and used in Estonia. The report indicated that approximately 80 million euros of the bank’s funds […]
Reported by Rachel Graf The US Securities and Exchange Commission won a jury verdict in its ground-breaking insider-trading case that sought to bar employees from using non-public information about their own company to place bets on rival stocks. The closely watched San Francisco civil trial was the regulator’s first enforcement action targeting so-called shadow trading, a widespread […]
Reported by Max Ramsay Over a third of the most-threatening criminal networks in the European Union are laundering their profits through real estate, according to a report on organized crime across the region. Europol, the EU agency for law enforcement cooperation, found that among the criminal groups that pose the most serious threat, 41% used […]
Reported by Camillus Eboh One of the two executives from Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, detained in Nigeria appeared in an Abuja court on Thursday [April 4] to face tax evasion and money laundering charges. Binance and two of its executives Tigran Gambaryan, a U.S. citizen and Binance’s head of financial crime compliance, and […]
Reported by Maria Evstropova and Tammy Li Market abuse and insider trading may often be associated with nefarious TV hedge funds, slick-haired Hollywood characters or, simply, bad actors making opportunistic decisions. However, recent publications and notices from the UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) may point to the increasingly treacherous and shrouded world of criminal enterprises […]
Reported by Caroline E. Brown, Nicole Sayegh Succar, Carlton Greene, and Anand Sithian On March 29, 2024, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (“FinCEN”), issued a “notice and request for information and comment” (“RFI”) seeking comments on the Bank Secrecy Act’s (“BSA”) customer identification program (“CIP”) rule. The CIP rule requires […]
Financial Crime News Briefs 