Two issues shaped AML news in 2018 – huge money laundering scandals in Europe and the implementation of the first wave of cryptocurrency regulations. As the year draws to a close what can we expect to fill the headlines in…
US authorities hit SocGen with a $1.3bn fine
A fine start to the week Société Générale announced on Monday that it will pay $1.3bn to US authorities and enter a Deferred Prosecution Agreement (DPA) with the Southern District of New York and the New York County District Attorney…
Round two of US sanctions on Iran
Ding ding ?? – get ready for round two of US sanctions on Iran On Monday, the US will reimpose a second round of sanctions on Iran. Not to be confused with sanctions brought in back in August, this batch…
Community banks to pool “some” AML resources
Comply together – Community banks given the ok to pool “some” AML resources At ACAMs in Las Vegas last week, a live survey taken by over 1000 attendees listed “resource allocation” as the greatest challenge facing the US anti-money laundering…
Environmental crime and threat finance
An inconvenient truth – environmental crime and threat finance Environmental crimes are the most important stream of revenue in conflict finance today. This is the stark finding of the “World Atlas of Illicit Flows” which was released last week by…
Sanctions and fines
Summer is over – Sanctions and fines Societe Generale announced this week they have set aside $1.27 billion to finally settle an allegation by US authorities that they violated sanctions. The case, which has been ongoing for over a year involves…
The role of professional money launderers
Swiss bankers, Maltese FIs and Venezuelan elite – a recipe to embezzle $1.2 billion Between 2014 and 2015 Venezuela’s now President, Nicolas Maduro and his three stepsons alledgly embezzled over $1.2 billion from Venezuela’s state oil and gas company, PDVSA. The…
Sanctions Policy in 2018
When in doubt, apply sanctions – one week of sanctions policy in 2018 Sanctions grabbed a lot of headlines last week. Here is a summary of the key events that kept twitter feeds alight: The US announced that it would…
US sanctions on Iran
Here we go again – US sanctions on Iran On August 6th it will be 90 days since President Trump pulled out of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) with Iran. This means that the first set of Iran…
FinCEN’s Final Rule on CDD comes into force
FinCEN’s Final Rule comes into force Today marks the implementation date of FinCEN’s final rule on Customer Due Diligence (CDD). Announced two years ago, the rule creates a four-step regime for what FinCEN will view as sufficient CDD on the…
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