Crypto

The Council of Europe’s anti-money-laundering body on Tuesday published a new report on how criminals exploit crypto-assets to launder illicit proceeds, fund terrorism, and evade sanctions.

Last month, the dollar-pegged stablecoin created by the Trump family’s crypto firm, World Liberty Financial, reached an important milestone: the total circulation of USD1 exceeded $5 billion for the first time, ranking it among the world’s top cryptocurrencies, according to recent reporting by The New York Times. 

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.

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.