Tweet In the Southern District of New York, two employees of a large national bank were charged with money laundering, bribery and wire fraud in connection with activities they allegedly undertook to create “doctored” bank records in order to steal over $1 million. Specifically, the US government alleges that they knowingly devised a scheme to […]
Tweet The country of Estonia came in 1st on the Basel AML Index this year, for anti-money laundering (AML) and counter terrorist financing (CTF) compliance. The annual ranking by the Basel Institute on Governance, measures the risk of money laundering and terrorist financing in countries using data from publicly available sources and includes assessments for […]
Tweet Bitcoin investor, Michael Terpin, won a US$75.8 million civil judgment on Friday in California against 21-year-old Nicholas Truglia who SIM-swapped Terpin’s cellular phone and stole over US$23 million from Terpin’s digital currency wallets that held coins from three ICOs. In all, Truglia is alleged to have stolen over US$81 million in crypto currencies via […]
Tweet According to this article in the Wall Street Journal, the level to which a bank is AML compliant, or not, is now a key factor used to determine its credit rating, and is more material than any other non-financial factor. The new report cites the fact that bank supervisors and federal regulators around the […]
Tweet The Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) published a framework for sanctions compliance yesterday which describes the sanctions compliance program standards for US legal and natural persons and for US-origin goods or services. The framework mirrors the requirements for a competence AML program and includes: commitment from the top down […]
Tweet Do foreign digital currency exchanges that take US customers online have to be AML registered in the US? Not unsurprisingly, the answer is yes. Under US law, digital currency ​exchangers​ qualify as money transmitters and are subject to the obligations under the Bank Secrecy Act. Key concepts to know are that: An exchanger is a person […]
Tweet Canada once again a “Major Money Laundering†country The 2018 “International Narcotics Control Strategy Report†(INCSR) published in March 2018 by the U.S. Department of State identifies Canada once again as a “major money laundering country†along with a host of risky countries for financial crime, and is generally doing a lot worse combatting money […]
Tweet The US Supreme Court this term is ruling on a case that may impact Canadian banks and other financial institutions. The case, Jesner v. Arab Bank, involves over 6,000 petitioners from Israel who were victims of terrorism in the Middle East who filed a tort claim against a corporation in New York, the Arab […]
Tweet Four people connected with a company called BioCube Inc., with connections to Canada were indicted on Friday for securities fraud and two for money laundering. They are alleged to have defrauded the public securities market by making untrue statements, omitting to make material statements and intentionally deceiving investors  – in essence, for engaging in […]
Tweet The Securities Exchange Commission has denied an application for the creation of a Bitcoin Trust based primarily on issues related to preservation of the integrity of the capital markets. The decision is what was expected from a financial crime and integrity perspective. The decision can be read here. The gist of the negative findings […]