SARs

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Friday called on banks to serve as partners in the federal government’s effort to combat payroll fraud, labor exploitation, and other financial crimes tied to undocumented workers.

Digital money transfer giant Wise is under criminal investigation by Belgian prosecutors over concerns that its accounts were used by international criminal organizations to launder proceeds of fraud, corruption, and drug trafficking.

Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania have jointly concluded that deliberate de-risking campaigns by traditional Baltic banks have driven large-scale client migration toward Lithuanian fintech firms, concentrating money laundering risk in a single digital institution.

Financial-crime authorities across the Middle East and North Africa hold powers that look adequate on paper but fail in practice, with anti-corruption agencies unable to freeze assets, prosecutors acting as political gatekeepers, and high-risk sectors filing almost no suspicious activity reports.

Jeffrey Epstein’s office relied on a dedicated team at American Express Co. to book travel for dozens of women, in some cases arranging sham itineraries designed to help them obtain visas.

Epstein’s Centurion relationship manager and more than a dozen American Express colleagues booked, canceled, and rebooked flights for women whose travel patterns and supporting documents two human-trafficking experts say should have raised red flags.

The U.S. Treasury Department on Monday issued an alert urging financial institutions to step up their detection of money laundering, sanctions evasion, and digital-asset transfers tied to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

A tiny New Zealand financial services firm processed millions of dollars in transfers for high-risk clients including a convicted U.S. fraudster, a Belarusian oligarch close to Aleksandr Lukashenko, and a British man later convicted in Europe’s “cum-ex” tax fraud.

Monaco’s financial markets watchdog has fined UBS €6 million for “numerous serious breaches” in anti-money-laundering and counterterrorism financing controls.

Ecuador’s financial regulators have launched a joint probe into possible money laundering at Banco Guayaquil, the country’s third-largest bank by net profit.

ING Belgium has agreed to pay a €1.6 million settlement over alleged failures to report suspicious transactions linked to former European Commissioner Didier Reynders.