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FCA updates position on cryptoasset Exchange Traded Notes for professional investors

The FCA continues to remind people that cryptoassets are high risk and largely unregulated. Those who invest should be prepared to lose all their money. The FCA is collaborating with government, international partners and industry to develop the UK’s cryptoasset regulatory regime and lead international standards in this space…

Wolfsberg Group publishes its updated Country Risk FAQs, providing a comprehensive understanding of the implications of country risk in the context of AML/CTF measures, including CDD requirements

The updated document specifically highlights: Clearer delineation of country risk within the wider context of CDD and enhanced due diligence EDD; Criminal indicators, political and regulatory factors which should be considered when developing a methodology to evaluate country risk; Sanctions considerations and their impact in the context of AML/CTF country risk; The need for a strong governance enabling an unbiased approach towards country risk; Practical guidance combined with clear roles & responsibilities for financial institutions…

 

European Parliament releases report on legal options that enable the use of Russian assets to reconstruct Ukraine

The European Parliament has published a study that evaluates options available under international law to enable the confiscation of Russian state assets to support the reconstruction of Ukraine. The report focuses on the $300 billion in frozen Russian Central Bank assets held in various jurisdictions…

US Treasury uses AI to recover more than $375 million in fraudulent payments

Check fraud has increased nationwide by 385% since the pandemic. To address the increase in fraud, Treasury’s Office of Payment Integrity (OPI), within the Bureau of the Fiscal Service implemented an enhanced process using AI to mitigate check fraud in near real-time by strengthening and expediting processes to recover potentially fraudulent payments from financial institutions…

 

 

FATF considers revision to Rec.16, its interpretive note and related glossary of specific terms, to adapt them to the changes in payment business models and messaging standards

These proposed revisions also aim to help make cross-border payments faster, cheaper, more transparent and inclusive whilst remaining safe and secure; an objective that is part of the G20 Priority Action Plan. Before finalising the revisions however, the FATF is seeking opinions from all interested stakeholders, in particular from the payments industry…

EPPO releases Annual Report for 2023, revealing 1927 ongoing investigations and €19.2 billion in damages to the EU budget

EPPO report shows that at the end of 2023, it had a total of 1927 active investigations, with an overall estimated damage to the EU budget of €19.2 billion – 59% of which (€11.5 billion, corresponding to 339 investigations) was linked to serious, cross-border VAT fraud…

US Task Force KleptoCapture announces array of new charges, arrests, and forfeiture proceedings in advance of second anniversary of illegal invasion of Ukraine

US seeks forfeiture of $2.5 million in luxury properties, makes two arrests, charges two sanctioned oligarchs, and secures guilty plea in significant money laundering case…

US DoJ convicts Javier Aguilar, former oil and gas trader, of FCPA violations and money laundering

A federal jury in Brooklyn convicted an oil and gas trader for his role in a scheme to bribe Ecuadorean and Mexican government officials and to launder money to secure contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars for his then-employer, Vitol Inc. (Vitol), the U.S. affiliate of the largest independent energy trading firm in the world…

US DoJ charges India and New Jersey-based jeweller with multimillion-dollar international trade fraud scheme and unlicensed money transmitting

Shah engaged in a scheme to evade duties for shipments of jewelry from Turkey and India to the US. Shah would ship or instruct his conspirators to ship goods from Turkey or India – which would have been subject to an approximately 5.5 percent duty if shipped directly to the US – to one of Shah’s companies in South Korea…

UK Government unveils a 22-point action plan to disrupt money mule activity and support exploited victims

The action plan includes creating best practice guidance on ML-linked red flags to look out for the financial sector, developing  work on firm’s fraud controls including deep dives into money mule contracts, implementing a data-sharing approach to detect high-risk payments and prevent fraudulent transactions…

 

SSRN releases paper on ‘How Do Crypto Flows Finance Slavery? The Economics of Pig Butchering’

Through blockchain addresses used by ‘‘pig butchering’’ victims, the paper trace crypto flows and uncover methods commonly used by scammers to obfuscate their activities, including multiple transactions, swapping between cryptocurrencies through DeFi smart contracts, and bridging across blockchains…

Europol supports EPPO investigation into €195 million VAT fraud scheme

Europol-led operation results in the arrest of 14 individuals across 17 countries for a EUR 195 million VAT fraud scheme. Seized assets include smartphones valued at EUR 15.3 million, a EUR 3 million yacht, and EUR 1.2 million in cash and cryptocurrency…