Articles Archive - Page 3 of 47

‘The investigations exposed outrageous misconduct at U.S. banks and flaws in American law’

In an extract from her new book, senior US lawyer Elise J. Bean hits on some pretty hot issues concerning money laundering, just one aspect of her rich and entertaining story. Duffle bags of cash. Corrupt dictators and their money-grubbing relatives. Sleazy offshore banks. Shell companies. Drug… Read More

Bearing witness to financial crime, across party lines

If it seems like an odd recipe for financial oversight, it’s also a surprisingly effective one: take five to ten congressional staffers, exile them to a squalid basement office with “hard-boiled” charm in the U.S. Senate’s oldest building, give them access to subpoena powers and a seemingly endless series of… Read More

Anti-money laundering analysis: UK FCA and EU blacklists update

A key element in the application of the risk-based approach (RBA) to financial crime is the identification by a firm of those countries with which its customers are closely linked and which are also adjudged to be high risk in financial crime terms. There are many lists of such high-risk… Read More

Know Your Buyer: Governments act against money laundering in real estate

A longtime favorite vehicle for money launderers, real estate as a means of hiding illicit proceeds has gained the renewed attention of regulators and legislators throughout the world. Real estate was an $8.5 trillion market in 2017, which warrants regulatory scrutiny and enhanced transparency for an industry exposed to the… Read More

CASE STUDY: Take the Money and Run: The Role of Asset Confiscation Under the New Serious and Organised Crime Strategy

Helena Wood Centre for Financial Crime and Security Studies, UK The British government claims to be focussing on its ability to seize the proceeds of organised crime, but the response remains piecemeal, underfunded and poorly coordinated As a seasoned follower of the UK’s progress (or lack thereof) in… Read More

Special Report: The ex-HSBC banker, go-fast limousines and bags of dirty cash

A tale of drug money laundering spanning from the crowded streets of Casablanca to the pristine shores of Lac Leman, Geneva, has finally come to its conclusion in the courts in Paris – and an epilogue yet to play out in French prison. The story begins almost a decade earlier… Read More

Banking: Curbing employee fraud and corruption with an effective KYE program

The banking system’s vulnerability to fraud, corruption and money laundering is once again a focal point of debate in the wake of recent disclosures by the Central Bank of Nigeria that major losses have been recorded by banks from armed robbery cases and other criminal activities amounting to N12bn… Read More

Opinion: Don’t let Iran’s rulers abuse the humanitarian channel to the detriment of the people

Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin has announced that the global financial messaging service SWIFT “would be subject to U.S. sanctions” if it does not remove designated Iranian banks from its system “as soon as technologically feasible.” He noted that humanitarian transactions with non-designated Iranian entities are permissible but warned, “People need to… Read More

Compliance: Major factors affecting the risk rating of a country

A question I often hear asked by compliance workers is ‘what are the factors that determine the risk rating of a country?’ When performing customer due diligence (CDD), we look at data points pertaining to the customer and weigh the customer risk based on certain criteria such as geographical risk,… Read More

The United States’ Danske Bank investigation – This is something different

Earlier this month, Danske Bank A/S – Denmark’s largest bank – announced that the United States Department of Justice (“DOJ”) has initiated a criminal investigation relating to the bank’s Estonian branch. This follows the announcement of a series of high-profile investigations by European regulators and a September 2018 report… Read More