Tagged: money laundering

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

August 11, 2022 @ 5:18 pm By JD Alois  |  

Elliptic, a crypto intelligence firm, has published an interesting blog post on the use, or abuse of, cross-chain bridges to launder funds. A cross-chain bridge allows value to hop to different blockchains. While utilized by legitimate platforms, cross-chain bridges have also caught the attention of… Read More

June 29, 2022 @ 8:14 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

CanDeal Group, an operator of Canadian market and infrastructure services, has teamed up with five of Canada’s biggest local banks “to deliver a comprehensive, centralized Know Your Client (KYC) solution to the Capital Markets Industry.” The collaboration mutualizes many of the costs and efforts of… Read More

March 24, 2022 @ 8:26 am By Omar Faridi  |  

According to research commissioned by Payments Bank, Banking Circle, big bank de-risking is “significantly hampering the efforts of many financial institutions to deliver services that empower financial inclusion.” The primary cause appears to be “the risk-averse strategies adopted in response to the financial crisis of… Read More

March 22, 2022 @ 10:27 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

To properly address the stricter compliance rules resulting from extended sanctions and resulting increase in money laundering activity, ComplyAdvantage, an international data firm providing embedded counter risk intelligence to find, mitigate and stop financial crimes and Resistant AI, an AI and machine learning company providing… Read More

March 7, 2022 @ 11:58 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

Jurisdictions under increased monitoring are “actively working” with the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) to address “strategic deficiencies” in their regimes in order to counter money laundering, terrorist financing, and proliferation financing. When the FATF places a jurisdiction under increased monitoring, it “means the country… Read More

February 24, 2022 @ 3:00 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

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

February 14, 2022 @ 10:57 am By Omar Faridi  |  

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

February 9, 2022 @ 8:35 am By Omar Faridi  |  

On August 2, 2016, Bitfinex – notably one of the largest virtual currency exchanges in the world – experienced a massive security breach. In a span of fewer than two hours, around 120,000 Bitcoins (BTC) had been stolen from Bitfinex and spread across 2,075 different… Read More

February 8, 2022 @ 3:03 pm By JD Alois  |  

Anti-money laundering (AML) fines had a blockbuster year in 2021, according to a report by Kyckr. The data firm recently posted a report on AML occurrences around the globe indicating that while the total amount of fines dipped in 2021 the number of institutions that… Read More

February 6, 2022 @ 3:17 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

Four managers working at Germany’s digital bank N26 are reportedly being investigated by public prosecutors regarding suspicions about (allegedly) fraudulent client accounts, the Handelsblatt newspaper confirmed on Friday (February 4, 2022). Criminals or bad actors have been suspected of opening a fairly large number of… Read More

December 17, 2021 @ 1:59 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), a bureau of the US Department of the Treasury that collects and analyzes information about financial transactions to combat money laundering, terrorist financing, and other financial crimes, is issuing a request for information (RFI) “seeking comments on ways to… Read More

December 14, 2021 @ 8:59 am By Omar Faridi  |  

British bank NatWest has reportedly been fined £264.8 million (appr. $354.30 million) on Monday (December 14, 2021) for failing to comply with appropriate money laundering regulations in a case that marked the first time that the United Kingdom’s financial regulators pursued criminal charges for these… Read More