The Skinny: When the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case Gonzalez v. Google, Inc. this term, speculations and theories exploded across the Internet. Why? The case could usher in a watershed moment and bring a painful, long-delayed reckoning for social media and tech titans like Google, which owns YouTube, Facebook, now Meta, and others. These companies and others have used broad protections crafted at the dawn of the Internet – at issue, Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act – as a shield against the hateful and dangerous words used by others on their platforms. The chief le ..read more

The Skinny: The U.S. Treasury bureau tasked with defending the country against illicit finance has noted a hefty surge in bank reports of a particularly persnickety strain of cyber-enabled fraud: ransomware attacks. The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) noted in two reports – covering the first and second half of 2021 – that suspicious activity reports (SARs) tied to ransomware nearly tripled, from 487 ransomware-related SARs in 2020, totaling nearly $416 million to 1,489 ransomware-related SARs in 2021, totaling nearly $1.2 billion. Law enforcement is responding – even if inve ..read more

The Skinny: Denmark’s largest bank stated it is setting aside an additional 14 billion Danish kroner (DKr), or roughly$1.9 billion, as a settlement figure to resolve domestic and foreign investigations tied to one of the largest money laundering scandals in history. Danske Bank has been under investigation in several countries including the United States over 200 billion euros ($220 billion) in payments through its branch in Estonia between 2007 and 2015, many of which the bank has said were suspicious. The money laundering scandal and related investigations have resulted in Estonia bootin ..read more

The Skinny: Early in Deleep Nair’s career, he confided to a mentor that he felt a “bit intimidated” and wondered whether he could compete in such a crowded field when his competitors could easily impress recruiters and target employment firms with just a word: Harvard, Yale or Princeton. His mentor’s response not only buoyed his flagging spirit, but formed the bedrock of a foundational philosophy that has propelled him to his current position as chief solution engineer of the Americas for SymphonyAI Sensa – an AI-based software company crafting fincrime detection technology for the financi ..read more

The Skinny: Two departments in the U.S. Treasury Tuesday levied a nearly $30 million fine against a midsize virtual currency exchange for a host of financial crime and sanctions compliance failings, including missed filings of aberrant activity and weak monitoring of activity tied to crypto mixers.   The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) and Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), the government agencies responsible for crafting the country’s anti-money laundering (AML) defenses and designating and blacklisting illicit entities and recalcitrant regions, censured crypto ex ..read more

The Skinny: As victims of Hurricane Ian try to pick up their pieces of their shattered lives, homes and businesses, many government agencies are warning of a second storm surge: heartless and predatory scammers. These callous tactics are on the minds of Florida officials and federal agencies, who warn the schemes, scams and frauds in the wake of such a disaster can take many forms. It might be a fake charity asking for donations. It could be a crooked contractor overcharging for cleaning up debris. It could be a job advertisement requiring payment of certain fees up front. Or it could be s ..read more

The Skinny: An annual index ranking global fincrime compliance efforts has concluded that, overall, progress has ground to a halt – and in too many areas may be retrenching as cagey criminals continue to be nimbler than the investigators, legislators and regulators trying to stop them. At issue: meager improvements in upgrading rules and understanding regional risks have been overwhelmed by the sheer magnitude of corruption, fueled in many cases by a lack of financial and corporate transparency and the ease of crafting shell companies with impenetrable and inscrutable ownership structures ..read more

The Skinny: For Katie Conroy, fincrime compliance problem solving is more than just analyzing rules, ruminating on regulations, digesting data and settling on a defensible risk plateau. It’s about the history of human problem solving itself: anthropology to amplify strategy. In many ways, the tenets of the anthropologist mirror the need for fincrime compliance professionals to see past history and current trends through a variety of lenses: the schemes, scams and crimes generating illicit finance. The flow of tainted funds around the world also ebbs and moves, acting and reacting to global ..read more

The Skinny: From accounting for a future compliance resolution to accountability and individual prosecutions. From delay, distract and backpedal to coming forward quickly, voluntarily and honestly disclosing the full scope of compliance failings. Those are some of the key takeaways from several just-announced and updated initiatives to embolden corporate compliance oversight, shorten investigations and sharpen enforcement for culpable individuals – regardless of their stratification – along with marking it harder to ward off prosecutions for serial, flagrant offenders. In all, the speeches ..read more

In this picture, a storm rolls across the state of Oklahoma, just as sanctions enforcement lightning struck one of the regions largest banks.  The Skinny: A new enforcement action from the sanctions arm of the U.S. government has offered rare insight into the expectations around how quickly operations must update their internal or vendor-driven screening programs when new designations come out. One key takeaway from the MidFirst action: some banks may need to have some hard conversations with their sanctions screening vendors. The question: How quickly do you update your screening p ..read more