Gambling

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.

New York Attorney General Letitia James sued crypto exchanges Coinbase and Gemini on Tuesday, accusing them of operating prediction markets that violate state gambling laws.

Cybercrime syndicates operating in Cambodia have grown so large and politically connected that the industry now rivals the country’s formal economy, with online scam networks accused of corrupting officials, enslaving workers, and defrauding victims around the world.

The U.S. Treasury Department on Tuesday imposed sanctions on six people and businesses it said were tied to a money laundering and cash-smuggling network operated by Cartel del Noreste, a Mexican drug trafficking group active near the U.S.-Mexico border.

Three Polymarket accounts made about $611,000 betting on a U.S.-Iran ceasefire before President Donald Trump’s conditional ceasefire announcement, according to a Decrypt report citing blockchain analytics firm Bubblemaps, in trades that renewed scrutiny of possible insider activity on prediction markets.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission sued Arizona, Illinois, and Connecticut on Thursday, escalating the Trump administration’s defense of prediction markets and arguing that the federal agency has exclusive authority over contracts offered by platforms such as Kalshi.

The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) will prioritize enforcement against insider trading in prediction markets, manipulation in energy markets, spoofing, retail fraud, and willful violations of anti-money-laundering (AML) laws, the agency’s new enforcement director said Tuesday. 

Two U.S. senators are set to introduce bipartisan legislation that would prohibit Commodity Futures Trading Commission-regulated prediction-market platforms from offering contracts tied to sporting events.

Prosecutors in Taiwan have indicted 10 people accused of operating a cross-border money laundering network that used Macau casinos and credit cards to launder more than $1 billion in funds.

Star Entertainment’s ex-chief executive Matthias Bekier and former in-house lawyer Paula Martin breached their directors’ duties during the casino operator’s “Chinese money-laundering era”, the Australian Federal Court found.