Launder money; lose your hand – two judges in Brunei caught laundering money avoid harsh sharia law punishment after taking $15 million from Court bank account and spending it on luxuries

Tweet Two High Court judges in Brunei convicted of money laundering and breach of trust for looting a Court trust account, will not be punished under Brunei’s new sharia law, which involves the hudud punishment of having their right hands amputated. Instead, they are going to jail. In July 2018, the two judges, Haji Nabil […]

SEC locates pump & dump alleged mastermind in Ibiza who used a Vancouver lawyer for the alleged scheme

Tweet Biozoom boy found in Ibiza The alleged mastermind behind the alleged pump and dump securities fraud case involving Biozoom, Francisco Abellan Villena, has been located in Ibiza, the playground for billionaires. Villena is currently incarcerated in Ibiza, perhaps on an extradition warrant from the US. He was located by an investigator in Spain hired […]

The Canadian: “[D]ude, we’re criminal drug dealers – what line shouldn’t we cross?” Explaining the Silk Road Money Laundering Case

Tweet 4th Anniversary of Silk Road founder’s Sentencing The end of May marked the 4th Anniversary of the sentencing of Ross Ulbricht, aka Dread Pirate Roberts, the founder of the now-defunct darknet marketplace website based in California, called Silk Road that operated on TOR, which brokered sales of illegal goods and services, including narcotics like […]

Oxymonster sentenced to 20 years for money laundering and dark net drug sales

Tweet A foreign national from France, known on the dark net as OxyMonster, was sentenced to 20 years jail in the US for selling drugs such as fentanyl, online, and laundering the proceeds of crime. Gal Vallerius, 36, pleaded guilty to drug distribution and money laundering in Miami in June for selling cocaine, methamphetamine, fentanyl, oxycodone […]

Woman who bought Bitcoin with $300,000 in cash in grocery bags, going to jail for one year

Tweet A woman in California, who admitted operating an unlicensed in-person digital currency exchange where she traded cash for Bitcoin,  was sentenced today to 12 months in federal prison, three years of supervised release, and a fine of US$20,000. Theresa Tetley pled guilty to conducting an illegal business and engaging in unlawful monetary transactions involving Bitcoin, and […]

Turning a blind eye to money laundering now costs you in Canada

Tweet In a surprise decision for Canada, an appellate court has reversed a lenient sentence for Jacqueline Garnett, the girlfriend of a drug dealer who was convicted of possession of proceeds of crime, and instead imposed a two-year conditional sentence, partially to be served under house arrest. While the new sentence is still light by […]

Politically exposed Chinese foreign national pleads guilty to immigration fraud

Tweet Shilan Zhao (趙世蘭), the ex-wife of a Chinese official and a politically exposed person, has pleaded guilty to immigration fraud related to the EB5 investor visa program in the US and will serve a term of incarceration of five years. Zhao conspired with her husband, Jianjun Qiao (喬建軍), aka Feng Li, to immigrate to […]

UK keeps its promise to jail officers for non-compliance with money laundering laws – likely world’s first incarceration over AML/CTF regulatory compliance failures

Tweet In what may be a world first, a UK Court has jailed the officer and owner of a money services business essentially for failing to comply with regulatory requirements for anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing. Paramjit Singh Sangha, who operated a money services business called PS Gold Exchange in England, failed to comply with […]

Construction firms execs & accountant jailed collectively for 90 years over under-the-table payments

Tweet The founders, executives and several employees of a UK construction firm have collectively been jailed for 90 years for money laundering and fraud for under-the-table construction payments made to subcontractors. The company hired contractors and paid them under-the-table, without paying the requisite payroll or sales taxes or making other employment-related contributions, totalling £8 billion. […]

Two Hong Kong billionaires convicted of money laundering over Macau government procurement case

Tweet Surprising criminal conviction of two Hong Kong tycoons In a surprising decision, the Macau Court of First Instance has convicted two high-profile Hong Kong businessmen of money laundering. Joseph Lau Luen-hung, and Stephen Lo Kit-sing, each received a sentence of five years and three months in prison and were sentenced in absentia.  Mr. Lau […]