Lenders

Criminal syndicates operating scam centers in Southeast Asia are adopting inexpensive artificial-intelligence tools to widen their reach and keep operations running even as governments intensify crackdowns, senior Interpol officials told Bloomberg.

The Trump administration placed a U.N. human-rights expert and multiple International Criminal Court officials on a U.S. sanctions blacklist typically reserved for terrorists and major criminals, according to a Reuters investigation.

Citigroup executives are increasingly optimistic they can complete the compliance work tied to the bank’s major regulatory consent orders later this year, according to Reuters.

Brazil’s Finance Ministry has urged the country’s central bank to tighten regulation around pooled and escrow accounts that authorities say are being used by bad actors to circumvent asset freezes, according to Reuters.

A massive corruption trial that spanned a decade ended last week in Turks and Caicos with the convictions of the jurisdiction’s former premier, his brother, and a one-time governmental minister, the Miami Herald said. 

UBS AG opened accounts for Ghislaine Maxwell in early 2014 and went on to manage as much as $19 million for her in the years before she was convicted for helping Jeffrey Epstein sexually traffic teenage girls, Reuters reported. 

A United Nations committee has approved exemptions from North Korea sanctions to allow a new round of humanitarian aid projects to proceed, Reuters reported on Friday, citing an unnamed diplomatic source. 

The U.S. Justice Department is increasingly targeting corrupt Mexican money brokers in an attempt to disrupt the financial networks used to launder cartel drug proceeds via cryptocurrency and other means, the Associated Press reported.

Crypto companies are pitching new concessions to banks in an effort to keep a sweeping digital-asset market-structure bill moving in the Senate, with proposals that would give community banks a larger role in the stablecoin ecosystem.

The European Union’s new Anti-Money Laundering Authority said it is on track to become fully operational in 2028, setting out a multi-year plan that flags emerging illicit-finance threats ranging from crypto-assets to “novel payment channels.”