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28th November 2019

Miami money manager pleads guilty in $1.2 billion Venezuelan laundering scheme

A Miami investment manager pleaded guilty Tuesday to participating in a $1.2 billion money-laundering ring run by wealthy Venezuelan businessmen with political connections to the socialist government of President Nicolás Maduro. Gustavo Hernandez Frieri, 45, was convicted of a single money-laundering conspiracy count and now faces less than 10… Read More

27th November 2019

KYC360 Exclusive: Leveling the Uneven Playing Field from Which We Fight

At times, we AML professionals in the private and public sectors that play by the rules have difficulty realizing that the “bad guys” at the highest levels of the criminal world have no rules. They have more resources and capabilities than we can conceptualize. Unless you’ve lived in that world,… Read More

26th November 2019

How to hide $53m: Mogul used mother and son’s finance firm

An Auckland finance firm and its mother and son owners can now be revealed as the company and pair who failed to report $53.4 million of suspicious transactions from a Chinese-Canadian mogul accused of running a $200m pyramid scheme. Jiaxin Finance Limited, Fuqin Che and her son Qiang Fu, also… Read More

26th November 2019

Ponzi Schemes, Private Yachts, and a Missing $250 Million in Crypto: The Strange Tale of Quadriga

“THE MERCY OF THE WAVES” The smiling boy visited Sunnybrook Yachts in the summer of 2017, after the value of Bitcoin had reached an all-time high, having tripled in five months. Sunnybrook is the largest yacht brokerage on Canada’s east coast. Its clients tended to be surgeons and litigators and… Read More

22nd November 2019

ABN Amro failed to screen 5 million customers after 2010 Fortis merger: report

When merging with Fortis in 2010, ABN Amro failed to screen the over 5 million Fortis customers individually, according to NRC. All 5 million of them were automatically labeled as “reliable” – the lowest risk category – meaning that ABN Amro considers them relatively harmless and unlikely to commit financial… Read More

22nd November 2019

Swiss prosecutors search Vitol, Trafigura offices amid sweeping graft probe

Swiss investigators have executed search warrants at addresses linked to Vitol and Trafigura, their counterparts in Brazil said on Thursday, as a sprawling probe into the global commodity trading industry intensifies. In a statement, Brazilian federal prosecutors said Swiss investigators searched the Geneva addresses on Wednesday as part of a… Read More

22nd November 2019

Swedbank May Have Breached US Sanctions Against Russia, SVT Reports

Swedbank AB may have violated U.S. sanctions against Russia by facilitating the transfer of about 10 million Swedish kronor ($1 million) from gun maker Kalashnikov to a U.S. subsidiary in Florida, according to a report by Swedish state broadcaster SVT. After Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, the U.S. imposed sanctions… Read More

21st November 2019

Banker On The Run

When Lithuania’s AB Bankas Snoras imploded in 2011, its main shareholders, Vladimir Antonov and Raimondas Baranauskas, had already left for the United Kingdom, where Antonov had accomplished a long-held dream to take over the Portsmouth Football Club. On Nov. 24 of that year Antonov, a Russian, and Baranauskas, a Lithuanian,… Read More

21st November 2019

Ex-CEO of Brazil’s Braskem arrested on U.S. corruption charges

The former chief executive of Brazilian petrochemical company Braskem SA (BRKM5.SA) was arrested on Wednesday in New York on charges that he took part in a scheme to pay millions of dollars in bribes to officials to secure government contracts. Jose Carlos Grubisich was charged with conspiracy to… Read More

21st November 2019

Swedbank’s High-Risk Secrets

Russian oligarch Mikhail Abyzov built a complex network of offshore companies that were used to move a fortune out of Russia, according to a Swedbank internal draft report obtained by OCCRP and its Swedish partner, national public TV channel Sveriges Television (SVT). Today he’s charged with defrauding the Russian government… Read More

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