Money Laundering Bulletin

If law enforcement struggles to find illicit cash, wire and cryptocurrency movements, the challenge in discovering movements of criminal proceeds through fraudulent adjustments in values of traded goods and services is surely tougher still? Can AI help detect trade-based money laundering (TBML) and just how serious is the threat it poses to financial systems? Keith Nuthall finds out.

German regulator BaFin has run out of patience with Varengold Bank AG over its ongoing failure to remedy "serious shortcomings" in anti-money laundering/counter financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) controls identified in a 2022 inspection and flagged by internal audits for that year and 2023.

Swiss bank UBS has finally drawn a line under its long-running tax evasion and aggravated money laundering case in France with an €835 million (US$980 million) settlement.

The European Banking Authority (EBA) says anti-money laundering regulators in the European Union (EU) will have to work hard to ensure devious virtual asset service providers (VASPs) do not breach their rules.

All but collapse of the country's formal banking system in 2019 and the resort to cash, a precarious politics, with Hizbullah, internationally designated a terrorist organisation, still in parliament, make Lebanon fertile ground for illicit financial operations. Paul Cochrane looks at the reforms needed, obstacles in the way and the risks of failure.

No public agency is ever likely to claim it has sufficient resource to do its job properly but financial intelligence units, handling seemingly relentless growth in suspicious activity report volumes while battling for resources, just as focus on AML effectiveness is sharpening, are in an especially tight spot. Keith Nuthall, Paul Cochrane, Gemma Handy, in St John's, Antigua, and Wachira Kigotho, in Nairobi find the same concerns repeated in jurisdictions across the globe.