US amends anti-money laundering law for beneficial ownership after Panama Papers, including to detect purchases of expensive real estate with illicit money

Tweet Panama Papers Driven Changes The US Treasury has announced several amendments, and proposed legislative amendments, to its anti-money laundering (“AML“) legislation in the wake of the Panama Papers scandal to tackle the disclosure of what is called “beneficial ownership.” Beneficial ownership means the beneficial, as opposed to the legal, owner of shares of a […]

Our most popular reads in 2015 in counter-terrorist financing and anti-money laundering

Tweet What do people read on Duhaime’s Financial Crime site?  Do you ever wonder what banks, law enforcement agencies and government agencies around the world are most interested in when it comes to financial crime (money laundering and counter-terrorist financing)? Duhaime”s AML Law is quite widely read around the world. Every bank, financial institution, government agency, […]

Canada and the fake refugee passport issue

Tweet Fake refugees — A crisis within a crisis It seems to becoming clear that it is not reasonably possible to rely on the identity documents of any persons who claim Syrian or Iraqi refugee status from 2014 onwards, the time in which the Islamic State acquired the capacity to create authentic passports. Since at […]

France’s top lawyer says there’s no reason to be optimistic on terrorism front

Tweet Francois Molins, France’s top prosecutor, says that the risk of terrorism is becoming larger, more multi-faceted and complex. In this interview (en francais), Maitre Molins talks about the threat of terrorism in France and some of the investigation and prosecution challenges in respect of counter-terrorism. No reason for optimism in terrorism Mr. Molins said […]

Towards redefining financial inclusion

Tweet Financial inclusion continues to be an important part of the dialogue on anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing law, because the latter results in a greater number of people being de-risked out of financial services or denied banking services altogether. In this piece in American Banker, we explore the issues that arise with the way […]

Developer sued for taking proceeds of crime from foreign nationals

Tweet New York real estate developer being sued for $18 billion for accepting alleged proceeds of corruption from foreigners who were known PEPs According to an article yesterday in the Wall Street Journal, real estate developers in New York are being sued for accepting proceeds of corruption from politically exposed persons (PEP). The plaintiffs are […]

UN Chief charged in money laundering bribery scheme for allegedly accepting millions in cash from Chinese casino billionaire

Tweet Former UN President Charged The former United Nations (“UN”) President of the UN General Assembly, John Ashe, the UN Deputy Ambassador, Francis Lorenzo, a Chinese foreign national billionaire, Ng Lap Seng (also known as David Ng) and two of his associates were charged in New York with various offenses over an alleged bribery scheme. Two […]

Sibos 2015 — Reinventing Financial Regulation & Financial Inclusion

Tweet         Re-Writing Financial Regulation Risk and innovation don’t always go well together. If banks, regulators, lawyers and companies involved in emerging FinTech could re-write financial regulation, including anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing regulation globally, what would it look like? What should stay, if anything and what’s missing? Should we give a […]

In 2015, more countries become terrorist hotspots; Canada moves up ranks to become 35th in terrorism threat index; US moves up to 17th place

Tweet US and Canada move up on the terrorism threat index 2014 and thus far in 2015, have been marked by a dramatic increase in terrorist incidents and in the number of countries that have been pulled into terrorist activity and for which financial institutions have been used for terrorist financing. Western countries are becoming […]

The FIFA scandal and why banks may be facing regulatory issues over KYC failures

Tweet FIFA Indictment against PEPs The 47-count Indictment against 14 persons employed or engaged by FIFA by the US District Court for the Eastern District of New York (“EDNY“), and their arrest may do more than shake up international soccer – it also has the potential to result in significant fines against many global banks who […]