Crypto

Fake banknotes resembling Monopoly money are being used to move rubles over borders as part of an effort to circumvent Western sanctions on the Russian Federation, according to new reporting by the Financial Times. 

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.

A top Democratic lawmaker has opened a congressional probe into the $500-million investment deal between representatives of Abu Dhabi’s “spy sheik” and the Trump family’s crypto firm World Liberty Financial, The Wall Street Journal 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.”

A Spanish police corruption investigation has widened into a narcotics and money-laundering scandal that links a senior economic-crimes investigator and a son of the Duke of Seville to an international drug-trafficking ring, The Times reported. 

Convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein made an early investment into Coinbase Global Inc. in 2014, putting roughly $3 million into the crypto exchange, according to emails released by the U.S. Department of Justice and reviewed by Decrypt.

U.S. investigators are examining whether specific cryptocurrency platforms have helped Iranian officials and state-linked actors evade sanctions as crypto activity in Iran surges, a blockchain researcher with direct knowledge of Treasury’s concerns told Reuters.

An Abu Dhabi royal secretly backed a $500-million deal to buy nearly half of a Trump-linked cryptocurrency venture months before the United Arab Emirates secured expanded access to tightly controlled U.S. artificial-intelligence chips, The Wall Street Journal reported. 

Chinese-language money laundering networks have become a central conduit for illicit cryptocurrency activity, processing an estimated 20% of known on-chain laundering over the past five years and accelerating far faster than illicit financial flows tied to centralized exchanges.