Tagged: aml

August 30, 2019 @ 6:51 am By Cali Haan  |  

Content warning: This article contains brief descriptions of the abuse of children. Reader discretion is advised. Cryptocurrencies are making cyber-crime, terror financing, money laundering and child exploitation much easier, Neil Walsh, chief of the Cybercrime and Anti-Money-Laundering section of the United Nation’s Office on Drugs and Crime… Read More

August 26, 2019 @ 9:30 am By JD Alois  |  

The Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) has published guidance as to the application of regulatory requirements for payments on the blockchain for financial services providers under FINMA supervision. Specifically, the guidance addresses anti-money laundering (AML) and know your customer (KYC) rules. In a release,… Read More

August 24, 2019 @ 11:33 am By Cali Haan  |  

Dutch banks are refusing to serve not only cryptocurrency trading platforms, but also “blockchain consultancies” or any firm using the terms “crypto” or “blockchain” in business filings, Nextens reports. According to the outlet: “An inventory was made in the Cryptocast program of BNR Nieuwsradio. When a… Read More

August 8, 2019 @ 10:31 am By JD Alois  |  

Regulated crypto exchange SBI VC (spun out from SoftBank), based in Japan, is now FATF compliant. Earlier this year FATF announced a set of requirements regarding “virtual asset service providers” or VASPs (mainly crypto exchanges). These new rules require the tracking and storing of all… Read More

August 6, 2019 @ 2:40 am By Cali Haan  |  

Police Major Gen Preecha Charoensahayanon, chief of Thailand’s Anti-Money Laundering Office (AMLO) says cryptocurrencies, “will be a tool of new money laundering,” in the country going forward. “That’s why we’re amending laws to prepare us for new online missions,” Charoensahayanon told The Bangkok Post. Charoensahayanon… Read More

July 18, 2019 @ 9:20 pm By Cali Haan  |  

A young student at Moscow State University, Alexey Andryunin, and his unnamed partner, have come up with a lucrative sideline that has made them much less interested in their studies: the wash trading of crypto tokens to make it look like there’s a market for… Read More

July 4, 2019 @ 2:18 am By Cali Haan  |  

The Dutch Finance Ministry and Ministry of Justice have vowed to regulate cryptocurrencies as part of the Netherland’s comprehensive new plan to combat money-laundering in the region. “Our goal is to guarantee an honest and safe financial system,” co-authors Minister of Finance Wopke Hoekstra and Minister… Read More

June 27, 2019 @ 1:42 am By Cali Haan  |  

Blockchain forensics firm Chainalysis, which recently expanded into providing KYC/AML support services to cryptocurrency businesses, has added another member to its powerful compliance team. According to a company release, Michael Mosier, former high-ranking employee at the Department of Justice (DOJ), the Office of Foreign Assets Control… Read More

June 17, 2019 @ 3:48 pm By Cali Haan  |  

Lithuania’s previously unregulated cryptocurrency sector will now have to abide by provisions set out in the Fifth EU Anti-Money Laundering Prevention Directive, Lithuanian news outlet Delfi reports. Amendments to existing laws, made last Wednesday by members of the Lithuanian cabinet, oblige all crypto businesses in… Read More

June 10, 2019 @ 2:57 pm By Cali Haan  |  

Finance Ministers from the world’s 20 most powerful economies have “…reaffirm(ed) (their) commitment to applying the recently amended FATF Standards to virtual assets and related providers for AML (anti-money laundering) and CFT (anti-terrorist finance),” in a communique issued from a meeting they held this weekend… Read More

May 30, 2019 @ 3:03 pm By Cali Haan  |  

Though cryptocurrencies were created to offer an alternative to traditional banking -and to affront it- the past two years have been characterized by crypto’s quest for legitimacy. To be fair, cryptocurrency exchanges with long-term interests, including Coinbase and Gemini, have attempted to be compliant from… Read More

May 28, 2019 @ 5:04 pm By Cali Haan  |  

For the past few years, cryptocurrency businesses have been flocking to Estonia, attracted by the relaxed regulatory climate the country provided as it vied to be a leader in digital banking in the Baltics. According to ERR News: “The rapidity and ease with which foreign… Read More

May 22, 2019 @ 5:23 pm By Cali Haan  |  

Police in the Netherlands and Luxembourg have seized six servers hosting Bestmixer.io, “one of the three largest mixing services for cryptocurrencies.” The seizures, cooperatively executed by the Dutch Fiscal Information and Investigation Service (FIOD), Europol and the authorities in Luxembourg, have resulted in the complete shutdown… Read More

April 28, 2019 @ 6:07 pm By Cali Haan  |  

Israeli civic-defence groups have been sounding the alarm since January that the militant Palestinian-liberation organization Hamas has started raising funds via Bitcoin. And while donations of Bitcoins to Hamas so far pale in comparison to the millions of dollars Hamas is believed to receive from… Read More

April 8, 2019 @ 10:58 pm By Cali Haan  |  

Lithuania has been moving for some time to establish itself as a Fintech leader in the Baltics. According to the previous reporting at Crowdfund Insider, the country registered 35 new Fintechs in 2017, and in early 2018, Invest Lithuania Managing Director Mantas Katinas promoted the… Read More

March 4, 2019 @ 2:05 pm By JD Alois  |  

Nordea Bank may be the next Scandinavian bank to get sucked into the money laundering scandal. Bloomberg is reporting that an upcoming broadcast that may reveal more details on money laundering have caused shares to drop. Apparently, a broadcast that will air by tomorrow will… Read More

March 1, 2019 @ 3:23 am By Cali Haan  |  

The Japan Times is reporting that the National Police Agency of Japan says it received 7000 reports of possible money laundering using cryptocurrencies in 2018. The represents a ten-fold jump in the number of reports submitted before December 2017, when Japan made it mandatory for cryptocurrency… Read More

February 22, 2019 @ 7:43 am By Cali Haan  |  

Close on the heels of Danske Bank being ordered out of Estonia this week for its alleged role in laundering funds totaling $234 billion USD for Ukrainian, Azerbaijani and Russian clients, Danske Bank has now announced it will be, “clos(ing) down its banking activities in… Read More

January 29, 2019 @ 10:37 am By JD Alois  |  

CipherTrace is out with a report on cryptocurrency scams and fraud. It is widely known that crypto suffers from rampant acts of theft and cons as these digital assets have become the targets of global criminals seeking an easy payday or simply to launder illicit… Read More

January 19, 2019 @ 10:35 am By Cali Haan  |  

Seven individuals have been arrested in Taiwan and charged with operating a crypto investment scheme police believe defrauded 1000 investors out of $51 million USD, Focus Taiwan reports. The seven are charged with “violating multiple banking and business…laws” covered by Taiwan’s Banking and Multi-Level Marketing Supervision acts. Among… Read More