MSBs

Mexico’s sweeping crackdown on electronic cigarettes is accelerating a shift in the country’s $1.5-billion vape-pen market toward organized crime, according to ABC News.

The U.S. is targeting Hamas’ covert support network, including six Gaza-based nonprofits that purportedly masquerade as medical charities while supporting the Palestinian group’s militant wing. 

The U.S. Treasury Department on Thursday launched a set of initiatives to investigate what it called “rampant government benefits fraud” in Minnesota, including the imposition of new reporting requirements for financial institutions. 

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.

The United States has imposed sanctions on four individuals and four companies it says helped recruit, pay and deploy Colombian mercenaries to fight for Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

The United States is tightening its oversight of the tens of billions of dollars resident and undocumented migrants send home each year through Western Union, MoneyGram, and other money services businesses (MSBs), according to a recent U.S. Treasury Department warning.  

United Nations expert is calling for the United States to lift its decades-old sanctions on Cuba, citing their corrosive impact on the country’s populace and economic future, Al Jazeera reported. 

The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has launched a consultation to overhaul the country’s transaction reporting regime, promising both stronger tools to combat financial crime and a lighter reporting burden for firms.

Wildlife traffickers are funneling dirty money through the same financial pipelines used for such illicit activity as human trafficking, child sexual exploitation, and the illegal sale of weapons around the world, according to new University of Waterloo research cited by CBC News. 

Federal prosecutors examined Jeffrey Epstein for money laundering and operating an unlicensed money-transmitting business in 2007, according to emails from the deceased sex trafficker’s personal Yahoo account obtained by Bloomberg.