Italian Bruna Szego is set to chair the European Union’s (EU) new Authority for Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism (AMLA) following a vote by two key European Parliament committees ..read more

Two Russian-speaking professional money laundering networks, run through financial firms to service organised crime groups worldwide, have been disrupted by international law enforcement, led by the UK’s National Crime Agency (NCA ..read more

A landslide victory in the November election presents the National People’s Power coalition with a clear opportunity to accelerate legal and regulatory reforms, says Poorna Rodrigo, and not to be missed given Sri Lanka’s chequered history on/off the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) and European Union (EU) lists of jurisdictions with anti-money laundering and counter terrorist financing deficiencies ..read more

The Basel Institute on Governance has welcomed a gradual improvement in anti-money laundering/counter financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) technical compliance with Financial Action Task Force (FATF) Recommendations but has warned governments’ progress in improving effectiveness remains sluggish ..read more

Geneva-based private bank Lombard Odier and one of its former relationship managers were indicted for ‘aggravated money laundering’, on 26 November ..read more

UK fintech Wise was ordered, in 2022, to obtain proof of address for “hundreds of thousands of customers” by the National Bank of Belgium, its regulator in Europe, sources have told the Financial Times ..read more

Of UK£11.1 billion (US$14.1bn) invested in 1,600 UK properties, since 2016, using funds with dubious origins, half (UK£5.9bn (US$7.5bn)) came via shell companies set up in UK Overseas Territories, with most (UK£5.5bn (US$7.0bn) from entities registered in the British Virgin Islands (BVI), according to research by Transparency International UK ..read more

Artificial intelligence (AI) says, “I detected a criminal!” The criminal says, “I trained you to say that.” Welcome to the new reality, says Mayank Sharma of FinScan, where criminals are magicians using AI tricks to make your money go away, and if you don’t have tools that are more sophisticated, the only thing left is an expensive lesson ..read more

China has taken a hard line on cryptocurrency activity, in sharp contrast to Hong Kong, but it goes on even as Beijing forges ahead with plans for a digital Yuan. Keith Nuthall & Andreia Nogueira puzzle the evolving regulatory response ..read more

The Isle of Man branch of HSBC has been ordered to pay a civil penalty of UK£293,930 (US$352,520) to the Isle of Man Financial Services Authority for unauthorised payments from accounts blocked over proceeds of crime concerns ..read more