MSBs

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Friday called on banks to serve as partners in the federal government’s effort to combat payroll fraud, labor exploitation, and other financial crimes tied to undocumented workers.

Human trafficking for the purpose of forcing victims to commit crimes is rising across Europe and demands urgent government action to protect victims and prevent their prosecution, the Council of Europe’s Group of Experts on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings said Friday in its 15th annual report.

Britain’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has written directly to Premier League football clubs warning that sponsorship arrangements with unauthorized cryptocurrency exchanges and trading platforms may expose them to criminal liability, money-laundering risks, and enforcement actions.

Digital money transfer giant Wise is under criminal investigation by Belgian prosecutors over concerns that its accounts were used by international criminal organizations to launder proceeds of fraud, corruption, and drug trafficking.

China has launched the biggest overhaul of its cross-border tax and capital-controls regime in decades, threatening three popular offshore brokers with at least $330 million in penalties, vowing stricter bank oversight, and ramping up private pressure on the country’s wealthiest citizens.

Financial firms have improved their sanctions controls but persistent weaknesses in due diligence, screening, and asset-freezing controls continue to drive compliance violations, the U.K. Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) said in a multi-firm review published Thursday.

Bitcoin Depot, formerly the largest operator of cryptocurrency ATMs in the United States, filed for voluntary Chapter 11 bankruptcy Sunday and took its roughly 9,700 kiosks offline.

The head of Canada’s anti-money-laundering (AML) watchdog is stepping down as Ottawa overhauls its approach to fighting financial crime and braces for the results of an international audit of its controls.

The U.S. Treasury Department on Monday issued an alert urging financial institutions to step up their detection of money laundering, sanctions evasion, and digital-asset transfers tied to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

The U.S. Treasury Department said on Friday it had imposed sanctions on an international network of 16 people and companies that allegedly diverted more than $100 million to Hezbollah since 2020.