CTF

The U.S. Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) and four federal banking regulators proposed a rule on Wednesday that would require permitted payment stablecoin issuers to maintain customer identification programs under the GENIUS Act’s anti-money-laundering (AML) framework.

The European Union’s highest court ruled Thursday that a bank may not refuse to open a basic payment account for a consumer solely because the person appears on a U.S. sanctions list, holding that such a refusal is permissible only after an individual assessment of money-laundering and terrorist-financing risk.

The U.S. Treasury Department on Tuesday sanctioned Nobitex, Iran’s largest digital asset exchange, accusing the platform of helping Tehran evade sanctions and facilitate terrorist financing and ransomware attacks. 

An employee of Banco Santander’s Chile unit was among 18 suspects detained Tuesday as Chilean authorities moved against an alleged $85-million money-laundering network tied to the Venezuelan criminal organization Tren de Aragua.

Singapore’s financial regulator has directed private banks to reduce account opening wait times to within one month by year-end, as the city-state moves to reassert itself as a global wealth management hub after a series of money-laundering scandals.

OFAC designated more than a dozen individuals and entities linked to the Sinaloa Cartel, targeting two separate networks accused of fentanyl trafficking and money laundering, including one that allegedly converted bulk U.S. drug cash into cryptocurrency for transfer to cartel leadership in Mexico.

Russian intelligence-linked hackers who penetrated the U.S. Treasury Department in the 2020 SolarWinds cyberattack gained the ability to access email accounts across the entire agency, including staff working on sanctions and financial-crime investigations.

Britain issued a new sanctions waiver on Tuesday allowing the import of certain diesel and jet fuel processed in third countries from Russian-origin oil, even as the United States separately tightened sanctions on networks it accused of supporting Hamas and helping Iran move oil and petrochemical revenue.

A resurgence of piracy off the coast of Somalia is compounding pressure on global shipping already strained by conflict in the Middle East, with multiple vessels hijacked in recent weeks and industry leaders warning of fresh strain on supply chains.

Federal authorities Friday announced the arrest of a senior commander of the Iran-backed Iraqi militia Kata’ib Hezbollah, accusing him of directing nearly 20 terrorist attacks across Europe and Canada and plotting to strike Jewish institutions in New York, Los Angeles, and Scottsdale, Arizona.