All Articles

Gracetown has been issued a $7,139,305 penalty following an investigation that confirmed the company processed payments connected to a sanctioned Russian oligarch and failed for years to report blocked assets under its control. The enforcement decision underscores the severity of sanctions breaches and the money laundering risks that can surface within real estate structures. The case illustrates how financial activity involving designated individuals can persist when interme

BaFin recently imposed a €35,000 penalty on Leonteq Securities Europe, but unresolved contradictions across audits, supervisory investigations, public statements, and cross-border oversight have raised more questions than the fine itself. The publication accompanying the sanction offered almost no detail, a silence that sharply contrasts with the severity and breadth of findings in Germany, Switzerland, and France. Earlier regulatory findings revealed structural AML failures

A wide-ranging fraud network built around sham crypto investment platforms and extensive money-laundering channels has been brought down following a sweeping Europol intervention, shutting off an ecosystem that had channelled more than EUR 700 million through counterfeit trading dashboards and complex cross-border blockchain movements. Coordinated raids across Europe exposed the full architecture of the operation, showing how digital anonymity, fabricated interfaces, and orga

A $125,000 penalty imposed by FINRA on the firm underscores how serious lapses in reporting to the Trade Reporting and Compliance Engine can erode fixed income market transparency. The sanction also covers a separate violation involving customer confirmations that lacked required security price information. FINRA determined that the firm either misreported or neglected to report more than 12,000 transactions across several years, affecting corporate debt and Treasury trading

The £825,000 penalty imposed on Done Brothers Cash Betting Limited, trading as Betfred, has brought renewed attention to ongoing deficiencies in anti-money laundering (AML) controls within the retail gambling sector. According to the first paragraph of the regulatory report, the fine resulted from an investigation that concluded the operator had “failed to maintain effective anti-money laundering oversight for customers using B3 gaming machines.” Regulators determined that th

Serious supervisory lapses at one of the UK’s major professional bodies have drawn attention to significant money-laundering vulnerabilities across the bookkeeping profession. The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has issued a formal public censure against the Institute of Certified Bookkeepers (ICB) after uncovering extensive deficiencies in the organisation’s oversight obligations. According to the regulator, the failings reflected systemic weaknesses that persisted for mor

Growing unease in the United Kingdom has focused on whether political donations made through digital assets could conceal the true financial source behind contributions. Officials argue that the country’s political finance rules must be updated to confront vulnerabilities that did not exist when the current framework was drafted. Scrutiny intensified after a major political party began accepting digital tokens from supporters early in 2025, triggering debate over transparency

IPI Partners, LLC, a Chicago-based private equity firm focused on acquiring, building and managing data-center facilities, has agreed to pay $11.5 million to resolve its civil liability stemming from 51 “apparent violations” of U.S. sanctions on Russia, the Treasury Department said in a statement. According to the department, the firm accepted and handled investments tied to Russian oligarch Suleiman Kerimov in 2017 and 2018 through a network of legal arrangements, and contin

The European Commission has opted to include Russia on its register of jurisdictions deemed to present a “high risk of money laundering and terrorist financing,” marking a significant escalation in the bloc’s financial-crime stance. The decision follows Russia’s suspension from the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) after its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, a step that still stopped short of formally blacklisting Moscow. Attempts by the Ukrainian government to secure that out

Advocate General Siewert Lindenbergh has issued guidance indicating that gambling agreements entered into before the Netherlands introduced its licensing system in April 2021 should not be regarded as invalid by default. His opinion comes in response to questions raised by the district courts of Amsterdam and Noord-Holland, both of which are handling test cases brought by players who are seeking repayment of losses accumulated before the country formally regulated online gamb

Speaking in Rome on November 28, 2025 at the UIF Bocconi Workshop on economic crime, Paolo Angelini, Deputy Director General of the Bank of Italy, delivered a detailed examination of how rapid shifts in digital finance are transforming the mechanics of illicit money movement, creating operational blind spots that European authorities are struggling to close. He argued that the accelerating adoption of digital tools by criminals has outpaced the regulatory frameworks meant to

Credit Suisse is again under pressure as Swiss prosecutors move forward with an indictment focused on money flows tied to the Mozambique loan arrangements, alleging that millions connected to the 2013 state-guaranteed financing entered accounts at the former bank and were then sent abroad despite red flags pointing to potential criminal origins. The case lays out a progression of internal decisions that, according to prosecutors, allowed questionable transfers to proceed with

Federica Mogherini, the European Union’s former foreign policy chief, has been detained by Belgian police in connection with an anti-fraud probe that has rattled Brussels. Mogherini, who led the EU’s diplomatic service as High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy from 2014 to 2019, was taken in for questioning on Tuesday morning during a series of coordinated raids targeting suspected irregularities in an EU-funded project. Since 2020, she has served as rect

In a coordinated enforcement effort that spanned Sweden and Spain, Europol-backed authorities exposed the financial engine behind a violent criminal organisation whose activities hinged on illicit gambling and extensive laundering schemes. The operation resulted in multiple arrests, the confiscation of luxury goods and cash, and the discovery of locations dedicated to managing underground revenue. Officials stated that the network not only generated significant sums through u

Synergy Credit Union has been hit with a 214,500-dollar penalty following regulatory findings that revealed significant deficiencies in its anti-money laundering (AML) controls, drawing national attention in Canada. The enforcement action followed a compliance examination by FINTRAC, which uncovered multiple breaches related to reporting lapses, gaps in risk assessment, and insufficient oversight. The findings highlighted structural weaknesses that directly impaired the credi

Regulators have issued a 300,000-dollar penalty to BMO Capital Markets after uncovering what they described as a multiyear collapse in transaction-reporting controls that repeatedly obscured fixed-income market visibility. Findings show that the firm allowed late, incomplete, and inaccurate TRACE submissions to persist for years, limiting the transparency required by surveillance teams and market participants. Automated reporting was not introduced until long after deficienci

Morgan Stanley has been fined 101 million euros after Dutch authorities concluded that two of its entities facilitated the misuse of dividend withholding tax rules. The case arose from coordinated trading and derivative activity that temporarily positioned a Dutch subsidiary as the apparent recipient of dividends. Investigators later determined that the economic benefit of those dividends flowed almost entirely to foreign institutions not entitled to Dutch tax credits or refu

South Korea’s top online retailer, Coupang, has issued an apology after revealing a large-scale security breach that may have compromised the personal information of almost 34 million domestic customer accounts.   The nation’s internet regulator confirmed that it has launched an inquiry, noting that data linked to the millions of affected accounts appears to have been exposed. Often dubbed the South Korean counterpart to Amazon.com , Coupang now finds itself at the center of

The European Union’s effort to leverage immobilised Russian state assets to support Ukraine has triggered warnings that such a move could increase borrowing costs for governments across the bloc, though several analysts say any effect on sovereign debt markets is likely to remain limited. The European Commission, searching for a long-term financing solution for Kyiv, is focusing on a €140bn “reparation loan” backed by Russian central-bank reserves frozen since 2022. Euroclear

A five-year prison sentence linked to a scheme that laundered 1.2 million dollars has concluded a complex cross-border investigation that involved extradition and a guilty plea. The case centered on a laundering network that funneled drug-derived proceeds through bulk cash pickups across multiple U.S. cities before channeling the funds through accounts registered under unrelated names. Prosecutors detailed how the operation moved money rapidly between the United States and Co