Crypto

An elite unit of Portugal’s Public Prosecutor’s Office has taken over a money-laundering investigation involving Elvira Gavrilova Paterson, a Ukrainian movie producer who helped promote alleged crypto frauds linked to Russian entrepreneur Vladimir Okhotnikov, according to the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. 

World Liberty Financial, the Trump family’s flagship crypto venture, said an affiliated entity has applied for a national banking license, The Wall Street Journal reported.

PwC has decided to “lean in” to cryptocurrency work after years of a more guarded approach, citing a friendlier U.S. policy environment under President Donald Trump and new legislation governing digital assets, according to the Financial Times. 

Iran is offering to sell ballistic missiles, drones, warships, and other advanced weapons systems to foreign governments in exchange for payment in cryptocurrency, the Financial Times reported.

Donald Trump’s return to the presidency has marked a stark shift in white-collar crime enforcement, with federal prosecutors and investigators stepping back from complex foreign-bribery, money-laundering, and corruption cases, The Wall Street Journal reported. 

A loose ecosystem of young cybercriminals known as “the Com” is increasingly being linked to a widening range of online and real-world offenses, from ransomware-style corporate attacks to the hacking of Pornhub users’ data, according to The Guardian.

The EU’s Anti-Money Laundering Authority (AMLA) on Thursday published draft technical standards intended to unify how financial supervisors assess risks and how the supervisory body will select the “most complex” high-risk institutions and groups it will directly oversee. 

The UK government will examine the role of cryptocurrency donations in politics as part of a wider review of party-financing rules triggered by a bribery case involving a Reform UK politician, Bloomberg reported.

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency has conditionally approved five national trust bank charters for firms focused on digital assets, in a move that brings more crypto-related activity into the federal banking system but under supervisory constraints.

China’s central bank has restated its hard line on cryptocurrencies, warning that a renewed wave of speculation is testing regulators and vowing tougher action against illegal activities involving stablecoins, according to Reuters.