Money Laundering

The Biden administration is looking to address actions taken by U.S. banks to unbank certain customers and groups over their perceived connections to higher money-laundering risks.  Banks’ decisions to limit exposure to certain categories of customers over increased illicit finance risks could hurt those communities and pose a national security risk by driving financial activities out of the regulated banking system, the U.S. Treasury Department said.  “Broad access to well-regulated financial services is in the interest…

The Enforcement Directorate Friday said it has filed a charge sheet against payment gateway Razorpay, three fintech companies controlled by Chinese nationals and as many NBFCs and some others in a money laundering probe linked to Chinese loan apps which allegedly cheated numerous people.The federal probe agency said in a statement that the special Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) court based in Bengaluru has taken cognisance of the prosecution complaint (charge sheet). A total of seven entities and five…

Federal prosecutors in Manhattan have charged exiled Chinese businessman Guo Wengui with duping investors out of hundreds of millions of dollars to bankroll the purchase of a sprawling mansion, a 145-foot luxury yacht and other lavish items. Mr. Guo, also known as Kwok Ho Wan, was arrested Wednesday morning in New York and is charged with 11 counts of fraud and money laundering, according to an indictment unsealed Wednesday in New York federal court.…

India's money laundering laws will apply to trade in cryptocurrencies, the federal government said in a notification dated March 7. The exchange between virtual digital assets and fiat currencies, the exchange between one or more forms of virtual digital assets and the transfer of digital assets will be covered under money laundering laws, the notification said. The safekeeping or administration of virtual digital assets and the participation in financial services related to the offer and sale of virtual digital assets…

U.S. authorities have been reportedly investigating Binance for nearly four years. Recent enforcement actions against entities connected to Binance is putting even more pressure on the world’s largest exchange.Photo: salarko (Shutterstock)Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange has been linked to a federally charged crypto company and its founder to the tune of nearly $346 million in bitcoin. It comes after months of speculation that federal prosecutors are honing in on Binance over allegedly facilitating illicit…

Photo: David McNew (Getty Images)In a nutshell, law enforcement agencies value transaction records because they can be used to paint an investigative picture and collect evidence of money laundering and fraud. Though the data on its own isn’t necessarily enough to make an arrest, supporters of the program say they establish a pattern and show the flow of funds potentially associated with criminal activity. These money transfer services, which are typically less regulated than larger banking institutions, have drawn…

BAGHDAD—Iraqis are blaming an unexpected culprit for a weakening currency that has caused the price of food and imported goods to rise: a little-noticed policy change by the U.S. Treasury and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.The New York Fed began enforcing tighter controls on international dollar transactions by commercial Iraqi banks in November, in a move to curtail money laundering and the illegal siphoning of dollars to Iran and other heavily sanctioned Middle East countries, U.S. and Iraqi officials said. Iraqi…

U.S. authorities designated cryptocurrency exchange Bitzlato Ltd. as a primary money-laundering concern and charged its founder for allegedly facilitating money laundering for criminals. The Treasury Department designated Bitzlato under a section of the USA Patriot Act, a law used to combat money laundering and terrorist financing, for allegedly laundering illicit funds for ransomware actors based in Russia. This type of action, a rarely used so-called death-knell sanction that cuts off…

There’s a whole lot of people who bought into the crypto hype from 2021 to early 2022, only to get burned by hacks, scams, or rug pulls over the course of this past year.Image: Vitalii Vodolazskyi (Shutterstock)As much as the crypto industry has been pummeled over the past year, both in terms of slouching crypto prices as well as waning public opinion, scammers, hackers, and sanctioned entities still managed to make a good chunk of change in 2022. Crypto analyst firm Chainalysis released its crime trends report for the…

CEO of Alameda Research, Caroline Ellison, (left) and FTX co-founder Gary Wang (right), both of whom have pleaded guilty to federal fraud charges.Screenshot: Twitter / Publish0xTwo executives connected to FTX, the bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange once valued at $32 billion, have pleaded guilty to criminal charges, according to U.S. Attorney Damian Williams, who made the announcement in a video statement released online late Wednesday. And that’s really bad news for FTX co-founder Sam Bankman-Fried, because the executives…