by Anti-Corruption Digest | Sep 30, 2020 | Anti- Money Laundering, Asia |
All things considered, Westpac’s record A$1.3 billion fine for breaching anti-money-laundering laws could have been worse. Each of the alleged 23 million breaches of the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Act between 2010 and 2018 carried a penalty of up to...
by Anti-Corruption Digest | Sep 30, 2020 | Africa, Anti- Money Laundering |
New guidance from the FATF has been welcomed by the crypto industry, despite the compliance challenges it presents, writes Nathan Smale at Emfarsis. Members of the cryptocurrency industry have welcomed new guidance from the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) outlining...
by Anti-Corruption Digest | Sep 30, 2020 | Anti- Money Laundering, Asia |
Months after Hyderabad police busted an online betting racket via Chinese gambling Apps; it is soon going to file chargesheet against 4 accused persons. In connection with the same illegal online betting racket, ED had conducted raids across the country and had frozen...
by Anti-Corruption Digest | Sep 30, 2020 | Anti- Money Laundering, Asia |
Chainalysis is opening new offices in Tokyo and Singapore that will serve as hubs for sales, professional investigative services, and training, the blockchain analysis company announced on Twitter. Chainalysis serves as a strategic partner to financial institutions,...
by Anti-Corruption Digest | Sep 30, 2020 | Anti- Money Laundering, Security Risks |
As the CEO of Makeba, a money transfer startup, Yamandou Alexander appreciates a paradox about his slice of the global financial technology industry. While sending money online to friends and family abroad has never been easier thanks to fintech, building a business...
by Anti-Corruption Digest | Sep 30, 2020 | Anti- Money Laundering, Europe |
The European Union, in collaboration with the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and the United Nations Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute (UNICRI), is launching a new project entitled “Building Libya’s National Capacity to Prevent and...
by Anti-Corruption Digest | Sep 30, 2020 | Anti- Money Laundering, Latin America, North America |
Leaked documents involving about $2tn of transactions have revealed how some of the world’s biggest banks have allowed criminals to move dirty money around the world. They also show how Russian oligarchs have used banks to avoid sanctions that were supposed to...
by Anti-Corruption Digest | Sep 29, 2020 | Anti- Money Laundering, Asia |
HSBC has received a much-needed vote of confidence from its largest investor after China’s Ping An Asset Management increased its stake in the embattled bank. The move comes after the lender was caught in the middle of rising diplomatic tensions between Washington and...
by Anti-Corruption Digest | Sep 29, 2020 | Anti- Money Laundering, Anti-Corruption, Asia |
There has been an uptick in the amount of online gaming in the Philippines recently, some of which has been determined to be operating beyond the scope of gambling laws. The country’s gambling regulator, PAGCOR, is perplexed over how this could be possible, since...
by Anti-Corruption Digest | Sep 29, 2020 | Anti- Money Laundering, Europe |
The European Banking Authority has called for the creation of a single body to oversee the European Union’s anti-money laundering and counter the financing of terrorism efforts. The EBA also calls for the EU to increase its ability to regulate member states’ AML/CFT...
by Anti-Corruption Digest | Sep 29, 2020 | Anti- Money Laundering, Latin America |
A group of South Florida property owners’ alleged ties to global money laundering are revealed in newly leaked bank documents. A family who owns a home worth more than $2 million in the Jockey Circle neighborhood in Davie and a man accused of buying an $850,000 Tudor...
by Anti-Corruption Digest | Sep 29, 2020 | Anti- Money Laundering, Latin America, North America |
The Campaign Legal Center said in the 81-page filing that the president’s reelection campaign and campaign committee hid $170 million in spending to major vendors as well as family members and associates by diverting the money through firms headed by Brad Parscale,...
by Anti-Corruption Digest | Sep 29, 2020 | Anti- Money Laundering, Asia |
Pakistani anti-corruption officials arrested the country’s opposition leader on Monday, September 28, days after he vowed to help lead efforts to dislodge Prime Minister Imran Khan’s government. Shahbaz Sharif – who heads the opposition in the...
by Anti-Corruption Digest | Sep 29, 2020 | Africa, Anti- Money Laundering |
Leading the call for effective global action against Illicit Financial Flows (IFF) and related vices, which is negatively impacting progress in developing countries especially in Africa, Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, SAN has called for an overhaul of the international...
by Anti-Corruption Digest | Sep 29, 2020 | Anti- Money Laundering, Latin America, North America |
Security veteran Matthieu Petrigh, launched a new website with open source training programs on an array of topics dedicated to security professionals and those interested in learning security the he hopes will help others in the industry progress their careers. Head...
by Anti-Corruption Digest | Sep 28, 2020 | Anti- Money Laundering, Europe |
From the EU’s war on encryption to Facebook’s threat to pull out of Europe, here are the key developments from this week. The EU is set to declare war on encryption The EU is set to declare war on encryption with plans to allow law enforcement officials “targeted...
by Anti-Corruption Digest | Sep 28, 2020 | Anti- Money Laundering, Asia |
Dominguez said that Senate Bill (SB) No. 1738 or the “E-Governance Act of 2020” underscores the importance of switching to electronic governance to cut red tape, upgrade the delivery of services to the people and curb corruption in the system. Dominguez said a bill,...
by Anti-Corruption Digest | Sep 28, 2020 | Anti- Money Laundering, Asia |
Australia’s Westpac Bank agreed to pay a A$1.3 billion fine on Thursday in a proposed settlement with the Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre (AUSTRAC) for breaching the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Act of 2006 (AML/CTF Act) by...
by Anti-Corruption Digest | Sep 28, 2020 | Anti- Money Laundering, Asia |
FinCEN report finds suspicious transactions through Indian banks between 2010 and 2017 were possibly used for money-laundering, terror financing, drug dealing ISLAMABAD – US Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) for suspected...
by Anti-Corruption Digest | Sep 28, 2020 | Anti- Money Laundering, Europe |
Connecting the databases of regulators, law enforcement and banks, and automatically blocking certain transactions, could be a way out of a banking catch-22 by enabling them to react more quickly. But the complex nature of stopping money laundering makes the tech...
by Anti-Corruption Digest | Sep 28, 2020 | Anti- Money Laundering, Europe |
Governments and banks around the world are doing little to tackle tax abuses, money laundering and corruption in a global financial system that perpetuates inequality and condemns people to endemic poverty, a high-level United Nations panel concluded on Thursday. The...
by Anti-Corruption Digest | Sep 28, 2020 | Anti- Money Laundering, Latin America |
The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (“FinCEN”), an agency within the Treasury Department, charged with combating money laundering, terrorist financing, and other financial crimes. A collection of “suspicious activity reports” offers a window into financial...
by Anti-Corruption Digest | Sep 28, 2020 | Anti- Money Laundering, Asia |
A new report by the Ministry of Public Security claims that Chinese gamblers remit $146 billion a year to cross-border operators. Liao Jinrong, an official at the ministry, argued that this posed a threat to national security during a keynote on Thursday at the Ninth...
by Anti-Corruption Digest | Sep 28, 2020 | Anti- Money Laundering, Asia |
FinCEN Files, a new investigation led by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, reveals the role of global banks in industrial-scale money laundering. ICIJ and 108 media partners spent 16 months investigating confidential U.S. Treasury documents...
by Anti-Corruption Digest | Sep 28, 2020 | Africa, Anti- Money Laundering |
South Africa’s courts were recently asked to rule on whether a financial institution, a bank, can freeze or restrict a client’s access to an account because they did not properly identify themselves. In an analysis of the case, Tracy Janse van Rensburg, director at...
by Anti-Corruption Digest | Sep 28, 2020 | Anti- Money Laundering, Asia |
THE Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) wants to be more proactive in tracking money laundering and terrorist financing by rating the effectiveness of firms in preventing such activities. On Sept. 24, the regulator issued Memorandum Circular No. 26, which calls...
by Anti-Corruption Digest | Sep 28, 2020 | Anti- Money Laundering, Europe |
Shares of Europe’s top banks dropped on Monday, after the publication of reports alleging they kept doing business with customers they suspected of money laundering and other wrongdoing. The report, led by BuzzFeed News and including other media outlets around the...
by Anti-Corruption Digest | Sep 28, 2020 | Anti- Money Laundering, North America |
A leak of U.S. Treasury Department records on red-flagged financial transactions underscores a message that national security officials, banks and regulators have been sending for more than a decade: Anti-money-laundering rules need to be updated to better disrupt...
by Anti-Corruption Digest | Sep 27, 2020 | Anti- Money Laundering |
Financial regulators must impose more heavy penalties to combat money laundering, experts argue, after an international journalism investigation alleged that astronomical amounts of dirty cash has been flowing for years through some top global banks. A probe by...
by Anti-Corruption Digest | Sep 27, 2020 | Anti- Money Laundering, North America |
The Mail on Sunday revealed in June that HSBC faces a separate £1.3billion class action legal claim for its involvement in a film scheme used for tax avoidance. A cache of files released last weekend allegedly show HSBC continued to move dirty cash for clients it...
by Anti-Corruption Digest | Sep 27, 2020 | Anti- Money Laundering, Europe |
The European Banking Authority has called for the creation of a single body to oversee the European Union’s anti-money laundering and counter the financing of terrorism efforts. The EBA also calls for the EU to increase its ability to regulate member states’ AML/CFT...
by Anti-Corruption Digest | Sep 27, 2020 | Anti- Money Laundering, Latin America |
BOCA RATON – The former president and a bookkeeper for the Listen Learn Care foundation – once known as the Office Depot Foundation – are accused of falsifying bank reports and taking hundreds of thousands of dollars in additional compensation and payments from the...
by Anti-Corruption Digest | Sep 26, 2020 | Anti- Money Laundering, North America |
2 million suspicious activity reports, or SARs, are filed by banks every year. Those reports are sent to the U.S. Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), which has the job of determining whether the reports are evidence of criminal activity,...
by Anti-Corruption Digest | Sep 26, 2020 | Anti- Money Laundering, Asia |
SYDNEY – Australian bank Westpac has agreed to pay a record fine for the nation’s biggest breach of anti-money laundering laws. The case was brought by the government’s Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Center, known as AUSTRAC. It said the penalty of...
by Anti-Corruption Digest | Sep 26, 2020 | Anti- Money Laundering, Asia |
Key points: FINCEN Files reveal the secret role of the Commonwealth Bank and an Australian foreign exchange broker in supporting an alleged five billion dollar money laundering ring The secret US Treasury documents were leaked to the International Consortium of...
by Anti-Corruption Digest | Sep 26, 2020 | Anti- Money Laundering, Asia |
The Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation (Pagcor) has urged social media platforms to play their part in combatting illegal gambling in the country, saying it has seen reports of unlicensed online activity increase since the start of novel coronavirus...
by Anti-Corruption Digest | Sep 26, 2020 | Africa, Anti- Money Laundering |
An aide to Tanzanian presidential candidate for Alliance for Change and Transparency (ACT-Wazalendo) is being held by the police for questioning on money laundering allegations. Jerome Luanda, and aide to Bernard Membe, was arrested on Tuesday at the Julius Nyerere...
by Anti-Corruption Digest | Sep 26, 2020 | Anti- Money Laundering, Middle East |
The state-run Egypt Independent has reported that Egyptian whistleblower Mohamed Ali is money laundering for the Muslim Brotherhood. According to the publication, Ali’s Amlak Company is co-founded with Palestinian businessman Abdel Rahman Abou Deya who runs “media...
by Anti-Corruption Digest | Sep 26, 2020 | Anti- Money Laundering, Latin America |
Soccer stars and FIFA officials, gold dealers with checkered pasts and politically connected tycoons suspected of ripping off food and housing programs for the poor were among the gallery of wealthy subjects whose banking secrets were exposed by the FinCEN Files. The...
by Anti-Corruption Digest | Sep 26, 2020 | Anti- Money Laundering, North America |
An impressive investigation by BuzzFeed and the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) revealed what has been clear to many of us in the banking regulatory world. Existing regulations and bank compliance processes are insufficient. And...
by Anti-Corruption Digest | Sep 26, 2020 | Anti- Money Laundering, Middle East |
DUBAI: The UAE central bank has said that banks should increase anti-money laundering efforts to safeguard financial stability in the country. “To mitigate the risk of financial crimes . . . banks are urged to put more efforts towardcombating money laundering and...
by Anti-Corruption Digest | Sep 26, 2020 | Anti- Money Laundering, Europe |
Governments and banks around the world are doing little to tackle tax abuses, money laundering and corruption in a global financial system that perpetuates inequality and condemns people to endemic poverty, a high-level United Nations panel concluded on Thursday. The...
by Anti-Corruption Digest | Sep 25, 2020 | Anti- Money Laundering, Asia |
Westpac has agreed to pay the largest fine in Australian corporate history — a $1.3 billion civil penalty for more than 23 million breaches of anti-money laundering laws. But what exactly did it do wrong and how does the penalty stack up? What are the laws Westpac...
by Anti-Corruption Digest | Sep 24, 2020 | Anti- Money Laundering, North America |
In March 2014, three men kidnapped Reynaldo Pacheco and bludgeoned his head with rocks, leaving the 44-year-old father of a young daughter dead in a creek bed in California’s Napa County. Local authorities determined that his murder was a consequence of an investment...
by Anti-Corruption Digest | Sep 24, 2020 | Africa, Anti- Money Laundering, Europe |
The Estonian banker was frantic: A whistleblower inside the bank suspected nine anonymous companies — all registered in the United Kingdom — of serious financial crimes and was threatening to go to authorities. “The whistleblower demands ALL OF THESE CLIENTS …...
by Anti-Corruption Digest | Sep 24, 2020 | Anti- Money Laundering, Asia |
Asia-focused bank HSBC (HSBC) has been hit by yet more bad news, this time in the shape of money laundering allegations. The shares have fallen in response. That is set against a general backdrop of share price decline for the name, which may continue as the economy...
by Anti-Corruption Digest | Sep 24, 2020 | Anti- Money Laundering, Featured, Featured Article |
We’ve just had the closest look yet at the global battle against money laundering, and it’s deeply troubling: Banks and their regulators are nowhere near restraining the flow of trillions of dollars of illicit funds. Both the finance industry and the authorities are...
by Anti-Corruption Digest | Sep 24, 2020 | Anti- Money Laundering, Latin America, North America |
Some of the world’s largest banks, including JPMorgan Chase, HSBC, and Deutsche Bank, allowed criminals to launder about $ 2 trillion (£ 1.5 trillion) of badly obtained money from 1999 to 2017, according to leaked FinCEN files. The investigation was conducted by 109...
by Anti-Corruption Digest | Sep 24, 2020 | Anti- Money Laundering, Europe |
Police in Malta have arrested the country’s former top government adviser, Keith Schembri, and his auditor, Brian Tonna, following an inquiry into alleged kickbacks from passport sales to wealthy Russians, according to local newspaper reports. Their arrests in the...
by Anti-Corruption Digest | Sep 24, 2020 | Anti- Money Laundering, North America |
On August 10, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) filed and settled charges against Interactive Brokers LLC, a registered futures commission merchant (FCM). The CFTC charged Interactive Brokers for failing to adequately supervise its employees’...
