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UK regulator finds gaps in wholesale broker AML controls
Senior managers in some UK wholesale brokers could not articulate the financial crime risks their firms face when questioned by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).
Online Published Date:
23 January 2025
Appeared in issue:
321 - 01 March 2025
Money mule details not shared in nearly two thirds of cases - UK research
Nearly 200,000 money mule accounts were closed by 25 UK-regulated firms between January 2022 and September 2023, says the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), but only 37% were reported to the National Fraud Database (NFD), and so accessible to other financial services businesses, telcos and public bodies comprising over 750 members of Cifas, the voluntary anti-fraud service, which maintains it.
Online Published Date:
24 January 2025
Appeared in issue:
321 - 01 March 2025
Balancing risk management and financial inclusion: a global imperative... with an eye on Lebanon
De-risking, potentially rational in a narrow, short-term sense to address perceived regulatory exposure, has severely damaging implications for categories of business, people, even countries. Mohammad Ibrahim Fheili insists there are viable alternatives to wholesale off-boarding.
Online Published Date:
24 January 2025
Appeared in issue:
321 - 01 March 2025
Egypt - a political context
Egypt recently updated its anti-money laundering and combating the financing of terrorism legislation but Paul Cochrane finds that lack of an independent judiciary and financial intelligence unit puts a question mark over effective enforcement.
Online Published Date:
27 January 2025
Appeared in issue:
321 - 01 March 2025
Navy Capital Green pays US$150,000 to SEC over AML assertions and undocumented controls
Navy Capital Green Management LLC, a US investment adviser, has agreed to accept a US$150,000 civil penalty from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to settle charges that it misrepresented its voluntary conduct of anti-money laundering due diligence, and, when registered with the Commission, failed to institute adequate written compliance policies and procedures.
Online Published Date:
28 January 2025
Appeared in issue:
321 - 01 March 2025
Volksbank fined €5m in Netherlands for transaction monitoring failures
Dutch lender de Volksbank's flawed transaction monitoring system and poor, including no, response to alerts generated, leading to major backlogs, has brought down a €5 million penalty from the De Nederlandsche Bank (DNB).
Online Published Date:
31 January 2025
Appeared in issue:
321 - 01 March 2025
EU law enforcement breaks professional money laundering group run from Cyprus
A Cyprus-based money laundering service has been taken down by a coalition of European law enforcement authorities, including the EU police and judicial agencies (Europol and Eurojust), following a year-long operation, codenamed Yuzuk.
Online Published Date:
31 January 2025
Appeared in issue:
321 - 01 March 2025
Interpol launches 'Silver Notice' asset recovery pilot
Global police agency Interpol has tested a new approach to asset recovery, issuing its first 'Silver Notice', designed to help trace and take back criminal property, to combat transnational organised crime and boost international police cooperation.
Online Published Date:
31 January 2025
Appeared in issue:
321 - 01 March 2025
Law & Lawyers Ltd & MLCO fined UK£25,000 each over client money and risk check breaches
London solicitors Law & Lawyers Limited (L&L) and Francis Mathew, a director at the firm, have each been fined UK£25,000 (US$31,000) and ordered, jointly, to pay costs of UK£38,000 (US$47,125) after a hearing before the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal (SDT).
Online Published Date:
01 February 2025
Appeared in issue:
321 - 01 March 2025
Brink's Global Services USA fined US$37m for bulk cash shipments absent effective AML
Not registering as a money service business (MSB) between around 7 October 2018 and 22 October 2020; instead, wilfully erroneously relying on an exemption from FinCEN's anti-money laundering requirement for currency transporters, such as armoured car companies, that applies to "wholly domestic" physical cash movements from/to a "currency originator" to/from their account at a financial institution, has cost Brink's Global Services USA, Inc a US$37 million civil money penalty from the US Department of the Treasury: US$20 million is offset against a US$50.4m forfeiture, imposed for failing to register as an MSB under a non-prosecution agreement with the Department of Justice.
Online Published Date:
08 February 2025
Appeared in issue:
321 - 01 March 2025
FinCrime Curator - February 2025
If geopolitics are markedly unstable as the new year proceeds - with ongoing conflict in Europe, a fragile ceasefire in the Middle East, and continual guesswork needed over President Trump's next topic du jour, to pick just three code red elements - there is always the constant of economic crime, albeit constantly dynamic; a challenge for which, fortunately, there is expert help and insight available online if you know where to look. MLB has compiled some of the best broadcast content.
Online Published Date:
10 February 2025
Appeared in issue:
321 - 01 March 2025
Tunisia - power play
Laws against money laundering and terrorist financing come with potent and intrusive regulations and investigative tools - useful, in the wrong hands, for suppressing dissent. Keith Nuthall, Paul Cochrane and Imen Bliwa find that recent prosecutions of leading political opposition figures in Tunisia are raising just such concern.
Online Published Date:
12 February 2025
Appeared in issue:
321 - 01 March 2025
Russian jailed in US for crypto-laundering conspiracy to fly home in prisoner swap
A Russian convicted in the USA of conspiracy to commit money laundering will be released home to Russia in exchange for Marc Fogel, an American teacher jailed there for alleged drug trafficking, and three Belarus detainees, including a Radio Liberty journalist.
Online Published Date:
13 February 2025
Appeared in issue:
321 - 01 March 2025
Barclays investigated in UK over AML controls
Notes to the 2024 annual report for Barclays plc reveal that the UK banking group is the subject of a civil enforcement probe by the UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) over its compliance with the Money Laundering Regulations 2007 and the regulator's own ML and financial crime rules.
Online Published Date:
14 February 2025
Appeared in issue:
321 - 01 March 2025
UK lawyer with "cavalier approach" to ML Regulations fined UK£45,000
A lawyer who insisted that he genuinely believed he had complied with the UK Money Laundering Regulations, but when investigated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) acknowledged he had not, has been fined UK£45,000 (US$56,730), and ordered to pay costs of UK£60,000 (US$75,640), by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal (SDT).
Online Published Date:
14 February 2025
Appeared in issue:
321 - 01 March 2025
Pipe down? - whistleblowing in the US
Protection and incentives for whistleblowers under United States law are strong, and influential overseas, but with a President now in the White House who is not known for brooking dissent and demands loyalty above all, they may face challenge. Keith Nuthall looks at the prospects for those who would discreetly speak truth to power.
Online Published Date:
16 February 2025
Appeared in issue:
321 - 01 March 2025
Power up - OSINT
The criminals are always in front... Well, maybe, but white hats are now on the front foot as open-source intelligence (OSINT) - data points already expanding exponentially and mined ever faster - sets to turbo with the arrival of generative AI. Keith Nuthall straps in for a thrilling tour of the best tools available to AML professionals.
Online Published Date:
16 February 2025
Appeared in issue:
321 - 01 March 2025
'Likely' not all suspected sanctions breaches reported - UK government
Some UK financial services firms are 'likely' (55-75% probability) not self-disclosing all suspected breaches of UK sanctions programmes, according to the Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation's (OFSI) threat assessment for the sector, published in February.
Online Published Date:
17 February 2025
Appeared in issue:
321 - 01 March 2025
Against the odds - Somalia
For a country without a government for well over a decade, till 2006, which is still struggling to contain the Al-Shabaab terrorist threat, Somalia has made considerable progress in constructing a legislative and institutional framework to combat illicit finance. Ramadhan Rajab and Keith Nuthall cover the hard journey and way ahead.
Online Published Date:
18 February 2025
Appeared in issue:
321 - 01 March 2025
Shock and awe
Socrates said it right - I know that I know nothing: who, after all, can guess where the US President might go next with his unique take on politics?
Online Published Date:
20 February 2025
Appeared in issue:
321 - 01 March 2025
Russian laundering ring broken in Spanish-led operation
A professional money laundering network, mainly comprising Russian nationals, focused on cleaning drug trafficking proceeds, has been taken down by Spanish and Portuguese police.
Online Published Date:
20 February 2025
Appeared in issue:
321 - 01 March 2025
EU tightens sanctions on Russia, even as USA talks with Kremlin
European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen has welcomed the agreement in principle of a 16th package of European Union (EU) sanctions against Russia, designed to further restrict trade, especially in oil and aluminium. The US, meanwhile, has opened talks with Moscow.
Online Published Date:
20 February 2025
Appeared in issue:
321 - 01 March 2025
Better over more - the SARs challenge
Disclosure of potentially criminal activity is anti-money laundering's primary product: are the reports useful, actionable and how could they be improved are seemingly straightforward yet recurrent questions. Paul Cochrane goes in search of answers.
Online Published Date:
21 February 2025
Appeared in issue:
321 - 01 March 2025
FATF backs changing risk-based approach to boost financial inclusion - plenary outcomes
The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) has amended its key Recommendation 1 on the risk-based approach to reduce the threat of anti-money laundering/counter financing of terrorism/counter financing of proliferation (AML/CFT/CFP) policies blocking public access to bank and other financial service accounts.
Online Published Date:
22 February 2025
Appeared in issue:
321 - 01 March 2025