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Featured Human Trafficking

Philippines: Child porn transactions hit P113 million in 6 months

Suspicious transactions worth P113.1 million related to child pornography were reported in the first half of last year, almost double the P65.8 million booked in 2019 as the government stepped up its campaign against the sexual abuse of children, the Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC) revealed. In a public bulletin titled… Read More

Banks urged to report customers suspected of human trafficking, not just ban them

The founder of an organisation dedicated to the eradication of modern slavery says careful and compliant reporting of suspicious transactions by banks would deliver a tremendous boost to stamping out crimes such as human trafficking, while banning whole industries risks merely forcing the problem underground. James Cockayne, the founder of… Read More

Brexit Deal Forces Prosecutors to Swap a Ferrari for a Citroen

Police and prosecutors will be forced to retreat to decades-old tools for cooperation despite a last-minute Brexit trade deal, raising the risk of fumbles. The pact between Britain and the European Union allows cooperation between the U.K. and member states, particularly as part of investigations into terrorism and serious crime,… Read More

29th December 2020

Bangladesh court orders freeze on 617 bank accounts of Shahid, family

A Dhaka court has ordered banks to freeze 617 accounts that belong to MP Kazi Shahid Islam Papul and his family members who are facing charges of money laundering and human trafficking. It also ordered the authorities to seize 92 registered properties of Shahid and his family. Judge KM Imrul… Read More

28th December 2020

The great opportunity: how Covid transformed global crime

By the end of March, one week into the UK’s first lockdown, recorded crime in Lancashire had dropped by a startling 40% compared with the four-year average. “At first there was some mild panic,” says DCI Eric Halford, of Lancashire Constabulary. “Most senior officers expected a surge in demand.”… Read More

24th December 2020

£1bn a year laundered in cash transfers

Gangsters, drug dealers and sex traffickers are using money transfer businesses to launder at least £1 billion in cash every year, the National Crime Agency said after a Times investigation. Sophisticated home-grown and foreign organised crime networks are known to use the UK outlets, which outnumber by four to one… Read More

24th December 2020

Mexico alleges Luz del Mundo, 4 other groups laundered money

AP — Mexican investigators said Tuesday they have filed money-laundering complaints against five religious groups in Mexico, including the Luz del Mundo church whose leader is charged in the United States with child rapes. The announcement from the Financial Intelligence Unit did not identify the groups involved… Read More

21st December 2020

Spain Busts Alleged Russian Criminal Syndicate

By Will Neal, OCCRP, 18 December 2020 OCCRP — Authorities in Spain have arrested 23 alleged members of a Russian-speaking conspiracy to infiltrate public institutions and launder proceeds from criminal enterprises involving murder, extortion, and drug, arms and human trafficking in several countries around the world. The sting, announced… Read More

18th December 2020

FATF Warns of Continued Criminal Exploitation of Covid-19

The FATF (Financial Action Task Force) has issued a new report detailing how criminals are continuing to exploit the Covid-19 crisis. The report represents an update to the FATF’s May report, which identified challenges, good practices and policy responses to new money laundering and terrorist financing threats and vulnerabilities… Read More

11th December 2020

FinCEN Clarifies How Banks Can Share Information on Suspicious Transactions

The U.S.’s anti-money-laundering watchdog released new guidance Thursday on how financial institutions can share personally identifiable information about their customers if they believe it is tied to a suspicious transaction. The guidance is meant to help clarify the limits to what officials have called a key tool in identifying potential… Read More

11th December 2020

The Wan Chai connection: The Washington-accused drug lords, gun runners and dictators’ financiers tied to one Hong Kong district

The Hong Kong neighborhood of Wan Chai may be home to the most eclectic and densest concentration of US-sanctioned enterprises anywhere on the planet. In less space than a square mile, you’ve got offices tied to: an alleged financier for Hezbollah, the Lebanese militant group; an individual accused… Read More

8th December 2020

Visa and Mastercard to Investigate Financial Ties to Pornhub

Visa and Mastercard said they would investigate their financial links to MindGeek, the parent company of the adult website Pornhub, after the New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof reported that the website included videos of child abuse and nonconsensual sexual violence. Visa said in a statement that it was… Read More

8th December 2020

Is an alleged drug kingpin from China investing millions in a port in Laos?

On October 6, news of a $50 million dollar investment to build a port in the Laotian town of Ban Mom led the business section of the Vientiane Times, a prominent state-run newspaper. In the second paragraph, readers were told that a man named Zhao Wei participated in a groundbreaking… Read More

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