Tagged: illicit activities

Monetary Authority of Singapore Launches COSMIC Platform to Combat Money Laundering

The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) has launched COSMIC, the first centralized digital platform to facilitate sharing of customer information among financial institutions (FIs) to combat money laundering (ML), terrorism financing (TF) and proliferation financing (PF) globally. The Financial Services and Markets (Amendment) Act 2023… Read More

Wirex, a Web3 Money Platform, Announces Enhancement in Measures to Combat Dark Web Activities and Money Mule Threats

Wirex, a Web3 money platform, announced a significant enhancement in its measures to combat Dark Web activities and money mule threats. The company has reportedly “incorporated ZeroFox’s Dark Web Monitoring tool into its system, creating a unified solution.” This way, a combination of human and… Read More

Financial Crime Negatively Impacts Economies and Must be Better Understood and Curbed – IMF Analysis

Policymakers need a “fuller view” of consequences of illicit flows, including tallies of the fiscal, monetary, financial, and structural costs, according to an update from the IMF. The fight against financial crime isn’t lost, but the world “needs to do more to limit the economic… Read More

Germany’s Finance Minister Calls on EU Nations to Make Frankfurt the Seat of the Bloc’s Anti-Money Laundering Authority (AMLA)

Germany’s Finance Minister Christian Lindner on Thursday (November 9, 2023) called on European Union nations to choose Frankfurt as the seat of the bloc’s anti-money laundering authority (AMLA). Lindner stated that a decision to locate AMLA in Frankfurt is a key move in order to… Read More

Lending Standards Board Shares Comment After Reports of Revolut Being Scrutinized by UK’s FCA for Allegedly Mishandling Red-Flag Accounts

Digital bank Revolut is under scrutiny from the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) for allegedly allowing money to “leave accounts flagged as potentially being used by scammers.” The Lending Standards Board (LSB) oversees the CRM Code, which is reportedly “the only set of protections requiring… Read More

Bitfinex Hacker, Wife Heather Morgan aka Rapper “Razzlekhan,” Plead Guilty to Money Laundering Conspiracy Involving Billions in Crypto

A married and aspiring rapper couple from New York City recently pleaded guilty to money laundering conspiracies arising from the hack and theft of approximately 120,000 Bitcoin from Bitfinex, a global cryptocurrency exchange. Ilya Lichtenstein, 35, and Heather Morgan, 33, were arrested in February 2022… Read More

Singapore: MAS to Strengthen Defense Against Money Laundering Risks in Single Family Offices

The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) recently launched a public consultation on a revised framework to strengthen surveillance and defence against money laundering (ML) risks in Singapore’s Single Family Office (SFO) sector. The revised framework will aim to “introduce a harmonized class exemption for SFOs… Read More

Germany: BaFin Updates on Digital Bank N26 to Curb Money Laundering

German regulatory authority BaFin has reportedly extended measures at digital bank N26 in an effort to prevent illicit activities. In 2019, BaFin issued an order targeting N26, telling the Fintech to “take appropriate internal safety measures” for the prevention of money laundering and terrorist financing…. Read More

Crypto Crime Down Considerably, But Ransomware Headed for Huge Year: Report

2023 so far has been a year of “recovery” for cryptocurrency after a chaotic 2022, with prices of digital assets like Bitcoin up over 80% on the year as of June 30, the team at Chainalysis noted. And that’s not the only “good news” for… Read More

Financial Crime: US Authorities to Increase Efforts to Combat Crypto-Related Illicit Activities

The dramatic rise of cryptocurrency theft during the last couple years has become a serious concern for US authorities, who are increasing their efforts to crackdown on bad actors and illicit crypto-related activities. This past year, crypto-focused hackers have reportedly been able to steal around… Read More

European Union Introduces Measures Against Money Laundering, Terrorist Financing

MEPs approved stricter rules “to close existing gaps in combating money laundering, terrorist financing and evasion of sanctions” in the European Union. This past week, MEPs from the Economic and Monetary Affairs and Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs committees “adopted their position on three… Read More

Former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried Expected to Plead Not Guilty to China Bribery Charges

Indicted FTX crypto exchange founder Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) is reportedly expected to plead not guilty this Thursday to the latest US criminal charges. These new charges include allegedy conspiring to violate campaign finance guidelines and even attempting to bribe Chinese officials. As first reported by… Read More

NICE Actimize Introduces Real-Time Money Mule Defense Solution to Detect Illicit Activity

Traditional payments monitoring systems often do not detect money mules’ movements as they secure illicit funds from financial institutions. To address this problem, NICE Actimize, a NICE business (Nasdaq: NICE), announced its cloud-first Money Mule Defense Solution designed “to detect, investigate and prevent mule account… Read More

Binance Announces Signing of MoU with Kazakhstan’s Financial Monitoring Agency

Binance is pleased to announce the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between Binance and the Financial Monitoring Agency of the Republic of Kazakhstan. The agreement “expresses signatories’ mutual interest in the safe development of virtual asset markets in Kazakhstan and creation of a… Read More

Cellebrite, Chainalysis to Enhance Digital Investigations by Unlocking Crypto Data

Cellebrite DI Ltd. (NASDAQ: CLBT), which claims to be a leader in Digital Intelligence (DI) solutions for the public and private sectors, and Chainalysis, the blockchain data platform, have launched a partnership to “enable customers to easily identify and assess criminal activity involving cryptocurrency during… Read More

SlowMist Explains How Peel Chains are Used to Launder Large Amounts of Cryptocurrency

SlowMist notes that not too long ago, they had released an update in regards to the Bitfinex incident. The report from SlowMist had covered how the stolen funds had allegedly been laundered using a technique known as “peel chain.” The company reveals that they received… Read More

Over 4,000 Criminal Whales are Holding $25B+ in Crypto: Research Report

One positive development during the past year has been law enforcement’s “growing” ability to seize virtual currency from criminals, according to an extensive update from Chainalysis. The US Department of Justice (DOJ) seized $2.3 million in crypto from the DarkSide ransomware operators who were allegedly… Read More

BTC and other Cryptos Not a Safe Haven for Criminals, Officials Claim After Seizing $3.6B in Crypto Stolen in Bitfinex 2016 Hack

Stephen Palley. Partner, Anderson Kill. Chair, Technology, Media & Distributed Systems Group, noted that an FBI agent once told (with “false modesty to be sure”) that their biggest breaks often “come not from law enforcement genius but from mistakes by their targets.” Palley further noted… Read More

Survey by UK Fintech Modulr Reveals that Consumers Feel More at Risk of Becoming Targets of Online Fraud

UK-based Fintech firm Modulr notes that unless you’ve been living in a completely different digital dimension, you can’t have “failed to hear about the data breaches and high-profile phishing scams that have been hitting the recent headlines.” The team at Modulr writes in a blog… Read More

Chainalysis Shares Blockchain Analysis Mistakes that Impede Crypto Investigations

The inherent transparency of blockchains or distributed ledger tech (DLT) networks makes crypto-related investigations a lot easier for law enforcement agencies, when compared to financial investigations involving fiat currency. Blockchains or DLT networks serve as a permanent, publicly viewable ledger of almost all crypto transfers,… Read More

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