Tagged: money laundering

December 12, 2023 @ 5:38 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

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

November 10, 2023 @ 8:25 am By Omar Faridi  |  

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

November 4, 2023 @ 2:10 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

On November 3, 2023, the United States Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned Russian national Ekaterina Zhdanova for using cryptocurrency “to launder money on behalf of Russian elites, ransomware groups, and other bad actors.” Chainalysis has examined the three Bitcoin… Read More

November 3, 2023 @ 5:21 am By Omar Faridi  |  

FTX founder and former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried has been found guilty Thursday (November 2, 2023) on all seven counts that are related to fraud as well as money laundering. Bankman-Fried was indicted on fraud charges on December 22, 2022, following the collapse of his crypto… Read More

September 24, 2023 @ 3:51 pm By Michael Wong  |  

In what is being touted as Singapore‘s most significant money laundering operation, authorities reported a staggering increase in the total value of assets confiscated, now amounting to S$2.4 billion ($1.76 billion), according to a police announcement. The huge inventory of seized assets now encompasses over… Read More

September 9, 2023 @ 3:20 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

Faruk Fatih Özer, the former Chief Executive of collapsed Turkey-based cryptocurrency exchange Thodex, has reportedly been sentenced to 11,196 years in prison on Thursday (September 7, 2023). Stealing around $2 billion from his clients led to the CEO of one of Turkey’s biggest virtual currency… Read More

August 20, 2023 @ 10:11 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) is setting out their expectations for crypto-asset businesses that need “to comply with a change in money laundering legislation legislated by government in July 2022.” From 1 September 2023, crypto-asset businesses in the UK will be “required to collect,… Read More

August 6, 2023 @ 6:03 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

Binance says it is pleased to announce the appointment of our former Global Head of Corporate Compliance Kristen Hecht as their new Deputy Chief Compliance Officer (CCO) and Global Money Laundering Reporting Officer (GMLRO) at Binance. As noted in a blog post, Kristen reportedly “brings… Read More

August 1, 2023 @ 10:56 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

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

July 22, 2023 @ 6:47 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

Rapyd, the global Fintech-as-a-Service provider, today announced the appointment of Dr. Shlomit Wagman, former Director-General of the Israel Money Laundering and Terror Financing Prohibition Authority (IMPA), Head of the Israeli Delegation to the FATF, Chair of the FATF operational working group, and a Harvard-affiliated scholar,… Read More

July 17, 2023 @ 9:09 am By Omar Faridi  |  

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

June 22, 2023 @ 3:31 pm By JD Alois  |  

Detractors of digital assets, or crypto, typically point to the utilization of crypto to pursue nefarious activities such as money laundering. Rules exist for financial transactions regarding “know your customer” (KYC) and “anti-money laundering” (AML), but they are enforced to various degrees depending on the… Read More

April 7, 2023 @ 12:28 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

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

February 16, 2023 @ 9:16 am By Omar Faridi  |  

Binance, the world’s largest digital currency exchange, is reportedly expecting to pay monetary penalties in order to settle US regulatory and law-enforcement investigations of its operations. This, according to the company’s CSO (as reported by the WSJ). Over the past five years, Binance has managed… Read More

February 1, 2023 @ 10:17 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

Eventus, a global provider of multi-asset class trade surveillance and market risk solutions,  announced the broad introduction of Validus AML (VAML), a new end-to-end anti-money laundering (AML) platform aimed at “helping firms in both the traditional finance and digital asset space combat financial crime.” The… Read More

January 30, 2023 @ 8:46 am By Omar Faridi  |  

Money laundering is “crucial” to all financially motivated crime because it’s what enables criminals “to access the funds they generate from their activities,” the team at Chainalysis explains. Otherwise, why commit the crimes in the first place? The same is true in cryptocurrency. The goal… Read More

January 25, 2023 @ 8:28 am By Omar Faridi  |  

Criminals have always found efficient ways “to launder the proceeds of their crimes and avoid increasingly stringent anti-money laundering regulations,” according to an update from CertiK. One such technique, uncovered by CertiK, poses “a direct threat to Web3 projects.” Criminal organizations are using this scheme… Read More

January 13, 2023 @ 4:37 pm By JD Alois  |  

It has not been that long since Nexo decided to exit the US market, but in recent days the offices of Nexo have been raided in Bulgaria according to multiple reports. While based in London, Nexo is affiliated with a former member of the Bulgarian… Read More

November 17, 2022 @ 11:24 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

Arion Bank has announced it will implement Lucinity’s technology “to help strengthen its defenses against money laundering and contribute to a safer financial system.” Lucinity’s software solution “uses the latest artificial intelligence technology to detect money laundering and make it easier for financial companies to… Read More

October 3, 2022 @ 7:44 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

Directorate of Enforcement (ED) in India has reportedly frozen the cryptocurrencies WRX (utility token of WazirX) and USDT (Tether, an Ethereum token that is pegged to the value of a U.S. dollar) equivalent to Rs 47.64 Lakhs (appr. $58,000) “under the provisions ofthe Prevention of… Read More