Financial Crime

23rd September 2019

Delaware Targets Shell Firm That Made Stormy Daniels Payment

Delaware’s top law-enforcement official is taking aim at shell companies formed under the state’s popular corporate laws to help funnel hush money to a porn star linked to President Donald Trump and move drug funds for Colombian revolutionaries. Attorney General Kathy Jennings filed papers Thursday seeking to dissolve… Read More

23rd September 2019

Anti-fraud training: New steps to curb financial crime

Dubai: Employees of over 100 exchange houses in the UAE will undergo training to curb financial crimes in the banking sector, following an agreement with Dubai Police and the UAE’s Foreign Exchange and Remittance Group (FERG). Major General Khalil Ebrahim Al Mansouri, assistant commander-in-chief of criminal investigation affairs, Dubai Police… Read More

23rd September 2019

Tanzanian leader suggests amnesty for financial crimes

Tanzania’s president said on Sunday people held on charges of tax evasion, money laundering and other financial crimes should be freed if they confess and return the cash. John Magufuli said it was only a recommendation – and it was not immediately clear what impact his words would have on… Read More

19th September 2019

Financial crime and the insurance industry

The insurance industry is open to abuse by criminals, including money launderers and terrorist financiers. Fraud and financial crime in the insurance space has risen sharply in recent years. According to PwC’s 2018 Global Economic Crime Survey, 62 percent of respondents from the global insurance community said their firms had… Read More

2nd September 2019

Duterte to consider Xi request to ban online casinos

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte will study the possibility of winding down the country’s booming offshore gambling industry after Chinese President Xi Jinping raised the subject at summit meeting in Beijing on Thursday. Known as Philippine Online Gaming Operators, or Pogos, the industry is mainly aimed at China, where gambling is… Read More

30th August 2019

Privacy fears slow spread of UK-style data-sharing to combat money laundering

European banks are ramping up spending on the fight against financial crime, after a wave of money-laundering scandals on the continent. However, industry insiders betray little optimism about the impact it will have on crime, let alone on banks’ reputations. Rob Wainwright, a former head of Europol now working at… Read More

26th August 2019

Boris Johnson’s Free Port Dreams Face a Luxembourg Reality

In Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s post-Brexit vision of a dynamic economy unshackled from the European Union, depressed British port cities will come roaring back to life as tax-exempt free ports. A concrete bunker on the edge of Luxembourg’s airport provides a useful reality check. There, on a side road flanked… Read More

22nd August 2019

Crown signals retreat from tour partners after ‘junkets’ scandal

Australian casino giant, Crown Resorts, has signalled it may reduce its reliance on Chinese “junket” operators as multiple investigations begin probing revelations it used recruiting firms connected to drug runners and other suspected criminals to lure cashed-up foreign gamblers. Crown on Wednesday also defended its due diligence and oversight… Read More

14th August 2019

Western Companies in Hong Kong Activate Contingency Plans as Turmoil Spreads

Western companies with large operations in Hong Kong are activating plans for employees to work remotely, and considering how to respond to a variety of possible scenarios, as protests and police actions in the city become more widespread and unpredictable. On Tuesday, as protesters disrupted Hong Kong’s airport… Read More

7th August 2019

HSBC agrees to 300 mln euro settlement of Belgian tax fraud case: prosecutors

HSBC’s Swiss private banking arm has agreed to pay nearly 300 million euros ($336 million) to settle a tax fraud case in Belgium, Belgian prosecutors said on Tuesday, the latest blow for the Alpine state’s banking sector from the EU. The settlement comes after a French court in February ordered… Read More