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Isabel dos Santos Facing Fraud Charges; Banker’s Death Linked to Investigation

Isabel dos Santos, Africa’s richest woman, is set to be indicted on charges including money laundering, influence peddling and forgery. The forthcoming charges were announced by Angola’s prosecutor general Hélder Pitra Grós at a news conference on Jan. 22. They came less than a week after a sweeping international investigation… Read More

Company Formation Given Undersized Role in Financial Gatekeeping, Say Experts

Banks will remain vulnerable to money laundering and other financial crimes unless further action is taken to improve transparency in the company formation sector, experts have said after an investigation revealed how easily shell firms can be set up across the world for illicit purposes. Last month, the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting… Read More

It May Be the Biggest Tax Heist Ever. And Europe Wants Justice.

They made quite a team. One was an Oxford-educated wunderkind who handled the complicated math behind the transactions. The other was a beefy, 6-foot-2 New Zealander with an apparent fondness for Hawaiian shirts, who brought in clients and money. Martin Shields and Paul Mora met in 2004, at the London… Read More

24th January 2020

Global Tax Crackdown Targets Central American Financial Firm

A Central American financial institution is suspected of helping clients worldwide evade taxes and launder money, according to tax investigators from the U.S., the Netherlands and three other nations coordinating a crackdown. Clients at the unidentified firm “may be using a sophisticated system to conceal and transfer wealth anonymously,” the… Read More

24th January 2020

World financial intelligence group re-admits Vatican after suspension

The Vatican has been fully re-admitted to the Egmont Group of world financial intelligence units after a suspension two months ago sparked by an investigation into the purchase of luxury London real estate. Carmelo Barbagallo, president of the Vatican’s Financial Information Authority (AIF), said on Thursday the AIF would “resume… Read More

24th January 2020

U.S. Blacklists Foreign Companies Allegedly Supporting Iran’s Petroleum Sector

The U.S. Treasury Department on Thursday blacklisted four foreign companies for allegedly supporting and facilitating Iran’s petrochemical and petroleum exports, among the latest efforts by Washington to ramp up pressure on Tehran. The Treasury alleged the four companies, based in areas ranging from Hong Kong to Shanghai to Dubai, collectively… Read More

24th January 2020

Casino Royale: Feds Say Chinese Drug Barons Laundered U.S. Coke Cash in Guatemalan Casinos

Chinese coke traffickers. Latin American cartels. Millions in American cash laundered through a Guatemalan casino. According to a wild federal criminal complaint unsealed in Virginia last week, the war on drugs is going about as well as ever. But it’s still no cinch to hide the proceeds of cross-continental… Read More

24th January 2020

Former Australian prosecutor Roger Griffith allegedly involved in drug syndicate, money laundering

A former solicitor and crown prosecutor accused of being involved in a crime syndicate allegedly helped the organisation’s attempts to move into wholesale drug dealing. Former Cairns Department of Public Prosecutions boss Roger Griffith faced a two-day committal hearing in Cairns Magistrates Court, charged with two counts each of drug… Read More

24th January 2020

Austrian Banks Elude Criminal Probe Despite New Findings

Although a criminal complaint implicating Austrian banks in money laundering was filed in February 2019, authorities in Vienna never launched an official investigation into the allegations that mainly target Raiffeisen Bank International, the Austrian weekly news magazine profil said on Monday. The complaint was brought forward by investment fund… Read More

24th January 2020

Dutch Curbing Phantom Company Culture That Aided Dos Santos

Dutch regulators say the country’s trust industry is failing to properly control the type of shell companies used by Isabel dos Santos, Africa’s richest woman, who is accused of bilking millions of dollars from companies in her native Angola. The country’s trust offices, which help establish and manage Netherlands-based businesses… Read More

23rd January 2020

Corruption Seen as Worsening or Stagnating in Most Nations: CPI Report

More than two-thirds of the nations surveyed by an international watchdog group, including some of the world’s most advanced economies, are believed to be backsliding or stagnating in their anti-corruption efforts, according to an annual report published Thursday. The 2019 Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) by Transparency International found that four… Read More

23rd January 2020

Luanda Leaks: Isabel dos Santos ‘named as suspect in criminal investigation’

Africa’s richest woman, Angola’s Isabel dos Santos, has been named as a formal suspect in a criminal investigation, the country’s attorney general is reported to have announced. Dos Santos amassed a fortune estimated at $2.2bn (£1.7bn) while her father, José Eduardo dos Santos, was president of Angola. She is… Read More

23rd January 2020

Heads could roll at PwC over Isabel dos Santos links, says chairman

The global chairman of PwC has warned that heads could roll at the professional services firm over its links to Isabel dos Santos, Africa’s richest woman, who is battling allegations that she obtained her wealth through corruption and nepotism. Bob Moritz, whose firm advised companies belonging to Dos Santos… Read More

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