Reported by: Dean Starkman The Swiss government plans to create a central registry to identify the true owners of now-anonymous Swiss-registered companies and partnerships, an incremental but important anti-money laundering reform for the longtime bastion of financial secrecy. The country’s Federal Council, Switzerland’s cabinet, has asked the government’s finance ministry to draft a law to create the […]
Reported by: Joseph BOYLE and Daniel Hoffman Under the headline “Scammers in Paris”, an online sleuth known as ZachXBT published a blog in August detailing how a pair of youngsters stole cryptoassets worth millions. Much to his surprise, the French police announced last week that they had acted on his tipoff and charged five people. […]
Reported by: Nancy J. Allen Bittrex, a cryptocurrency exchange, agreed to pay just under $30 million in fines and keep a closer eye on its compliance program as part of a settlement with the United States Treasury Department over allegations that it had accidentally violated federal sanctions. The settlements were made public on Tuesday by the […]
Reported by: swissinfo.ch The Swiss government has asked the finance ministry to draft a bill to increase transparency of beneficial owners of legal entities to help tackle financial crime. The bill should introduce a central register for identifying beneficial owners and new obligations when it comes to risks of financial crime, the government said on […]
Reported by: Martin Byers of Ogier To comply with applicable regulations in the Cayman Islands, anti-money laundering officers appointed by Cayman funds must understand and act in accordance with their duties and responsibilities. The Cayman Anti-Money Laundering Regulations (AMLRs), which apply to funds carrying on relevant financial business in the jurisdiction, set out certain duties […]
Reported by: Sebastian Rotella and Kirsten Berg In 2017, Drug Enforcement Administration agents following the money from cocaine deals in Memphis, Tennessee, identified a mysterious figure in Mexico entrusted by drug lords with their millions: a Chinese American gangster named Xizhi Li. As the agents tracked Li’s activity across the Americas and Asia, they realized […]
Reported by: ZDRAVKO LJUBAS The U.K. branch of the global anti-graft watchdog Transparency International warned on Monday that more than one in ten of all Limited Liability Partnerships (LLPs) ever registered in Britain bear the “hallmarks of shell companies used for serious financial crimes.” Around 14% of all LLPs formed between 2001 and 2021 have […]
Reported by: Daniel Van Boom The Lazarus Group, a hacking outfit associated with North Korea’s government, managed to drain over $600 million in crypto from a blockchain used by NFT game Axie Infinity. North Korean hackers stole $840 million in the first five months of 2022, according to Chainalysis data, over $200 million more than they’d plundered […]
Reported by: Jonathan Browning Sigma Broking Ltd. was fined £530,000 ($596,830) for a series of reporting failures, the Financial Conduct Authority said Thursday. The regulator, which has recently prioritized cases of market abuse, said managers acted negligently while compliance and oversight was “unclear and confused.” The privately-owned brokerage missed 97 suspicious transactions or orders that […]
Reported by: TAYLOR LOCKE Criminals have increasingly used decentralized exchanges (DEXs), cross-chain bridges, and coin-swap services for money laundering, a new report by blockchain analysis firm Elliptic shows. Though use of each typically is “overwhelmingly legitimate,” criminals so far have laundered over $4 billion in illicit crypto through the three services since 2020. “This expansion […]
Financial Crime News Briefs 