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Articles by charis le Bredonchel
AML Roundup: Crypto Regulation EU First - UK ditches plans to let 500 EU finance laws expire - Money Laundering, Fraud, Corruption, & Bribery - Legislation, Reports, Analyses, & Opinions - Gaming and Gambling - Sanctions - Crypto & Virtual Assets
Having struggled with the best way to regulate Crypto and other virtual assets, governments are beginning to bring regulatory rules to the industry. EU countries this week approved the world’s first set of comprehensive directions to regulate crypto assets (the MiCA regulations). No doubt it’ll be the first of many. We’ve also seen the UK government backtrack on their plans to ditch thousands of EU regulations at the end of the year.
AML Roundup: Spotlight on FTX
AML Roundup: Spotlight on FTX 18 Nov 2022 In this week’s roundup we focus on the collapse of the cryptocurrency exchange, FTX. The platform had filed for bankruptcy just last week but in the fallout, among rumours of potential fraud and money laundering, authorities have begun investigating the platform and its founder Sam Bankman-Fried. In other news, the UK (United Kingdom) announced further sanctions against Iranian officials, with a focus on those who have violated human rights.
AML Roundup: Spotlight on Money Laundering, Crypto and the War on Drugs
In this week’s roundup we start off with a brief look at crypto. The relationship between crypto and sanctions is once again being questioned after Iran’s new import regulations provide a potential loophole for the country to skirt sanctions. In AML, a new report has called on Switzerland to get tougher on money laundering. The country is due its next FATF country report (making it Switzerland’s fifth) in 2024, but Switzerland is also set to update its AML regulations next year.
AML Roundup - 11 March 2022
As the war in Ukraine continues to reverberate across the world, we have dedicated the first section of this week’s AML Roundup to updating you on the sanctions that have been introduced over the last 7 days. In addition, we highlight the key takeaways from FATF’s annual plenary, together with its members statement on the situation in Ukraine.
AML Roundup - 25 Feb 2022
In this week’s roundup: With Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, countries have been issuing sanctions in an attempt to stop further aggression. Credit Suisse dominated the headlines at the start of the week with a whistleblower leaking information about over 18,000 accounts held at the bank. We also looked at the threat of money laundering in the Netherlands. These updates are emailed to our weekly KYC360 subscribers every Friday.
Australia: How the banks and AUSTRAC are fighting back against financial crime
Earlier this year in the National Australia Bank’s Docklands headquarters, a fraud officer noticed a suspicious pattern of transactions made by a 70-year-old woman. The officer opened the bank account and saw more than 20 transfers to Coinspot, an Australian cryptocurrency exchange. The customer’s transaction history showed the woman had transferred between $550 and $39,000, amounting to more than $400,000, within a few months.
U.K. Cyber Chief Cameron Says Ransomware Is Key Online Threat
Professional criminals holding businesses to ransom — often with the support of nation-states — is the key online threat facing the U.K., the country’s cyber security chief will say Monday.
Report: Criminals Exploit Latin American Airports to Traffic Wildlife
By Julett Pineda Sleinan, OCCRP, 24 May 2021 OCCRP — Criminal organizations exploited increased air travel in Latin America and the Caribbean to traffic birds, reptiles, mammals and other species outside and within the region, endangering the world’s most-wildlife rich territory, a new report reveals. Mexico, Brazil and Colombia reported the highest number of wildlife seizures over the past decade, TRAFFIC, an international NGO that monitors the global wildlife trade, revealed last week.
JPMorgan Memo Warned $875 Million Nigeria Payment Was Graft Risk
JPMorgan Chase & Co. was warned by its compliance team over the “great risk” of corruption just days before it made the last of three transfers that totaled $875 million to a former Nigerian oil minister. The internal memo is set to be scrutinized in a London lawsuit brought by the West African nation. The U.S. bank is accused of ignoring red flags when it transferred funds between 2011 to 2013 from government accounts to Dan Etete, who had been convicted of money laundering.
Ransomware Attackers Up Ante as White House Vows Crack Down
A series of major cyber-attacks in recent weeks has underscored the brazenness of the attackers and the challenges of tackling the problem of ransomware, just as the Biden administration announced plans to take on the issue.
Ex-SocGen Bankers Challenge Fines Over Putin Foe’s $700 Million Deposits
Two former Societe Generale SA bankers are challenging Swiss fines issued for failing to report suspicious deposits worth more than $700 million made by a one-time ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin. The former head of SocGen’s Swiss private bank and the ex-head of compliance, who can only be named as L. and K. under Swiss reporting restrictions, are appealing fines totaling 90,000 swiss francs ($96,000) at a trial starting Wednesday in Bellinzona.
Citi Hires FinCEN’s Blanco as Financial Crimes Compliance Chief
Citigroup Inc. hired Ken Blanco, the director of the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, as its chief compliance officer of its newly created financial crimes unit. Blanco worked on combating financial crimes and enforcing regulations on money laundering and terrorism financing at FinCEN, a bureau in the Department of Treasury.
Mun Chol-myong: North Korean ‘whisky spy’ goes on trial for money laundering
An alleged spy has become the first North Korean to go on trial in America, on charges of covering up the smuggling of wine, whisky, cognac and cigarettes destined for the elite circle surrounding Kim Jong-un. Mun Chol-myong, 55, appeared in court in Washington after his arrest in Malaysia, where he had lived for a decade. His extradition to the US has angered Pyongyang, which has shut down its embassy in Kuala Lumpur and cut diplomatic relations in retaliation.
Bank of England governor Andrew Bailey in bid to force Google to stop bank scams
The governor of the Bank of England, Andrew Bailey, is demanding that internet giants be forced to take down fraudulent websites. There has been a surge in online fraud during the pandemic. Action Fraud, the national reporting agency, said that £78 million was lost on fake investment websites, with victims losing £45,242 on average in 2020. Some websites advertise get-rich-quick schemes or cryptocurrency scams, while others appear to be reputable investment firms.
Australia: AML Bill Passes Senate, DNFBP Amendment Rejected
Australia’s Senate has voted down a legislative amendment that would have required the government subjected real estate agents, accountants, lawyers and high-value goods dealers to AML legislation within six months.
Philippine SEC Proposes Stronger Rules on Beneficial Ownership
The Philippine SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) has drafted new rules that aim to increase the transparency of beneficial ownership of corporations, in a bid to prevent them from being used as vehicles for money laundering and terrorist financing.
Trump Set Record Sanctions Use That Biden Is Likely to Maintain
The Trump administration has imposed sanctions at a record-shattering pace of about three times a day during the president’s time in office: a slew of measures targeting companies, individuals and even oil tankers tied to Iran, North Korea, China, Venezuela and Russia. President-elect Joe Biden’s team is promising a top-to-bottom review of sanctions operations, but don’t expect a significant slowdown on his watch.
‘An MBA in Corruption’: How Top Oil Trader Paid Bribes for Years
For years, the world’s largest oil trading firm has maintained that it has “zero tolerance” for corruption. Now Vitol Inc. has admitted that it was paying bribes through a network of shell companies and sham contracts. As recently as July 2020, while publicly repeating those assurances, Vitol was bribing government officials in Ecuador and Mexico.
U.S. Anti-Money-Laundering Measure Poised to Clear Congress
Congress is set to approve legislation requiring companies in the U.S. to register their true owners, plugging what many illicit-finance experts say is one of the biggest holes in U.S. anti-money-laundering rules. Lawmakers in both parties late Thursday announced an agreement to overhaul the framework for fighting money laundering. The measures are expected to be voted on as soon as next week as part of an annual defense-policy bill.
Antibribery group praises U.S. enforcement against foreign bribery
The U.S. continues to lead in enforcement against transnational corruption but could improve on its efforts by extending protection to more whistleblowers and by offering additional transparency in the resolution of foreign-bribery cases, an international antibribery watchdog said.
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