Covered Institutions

A tiny New Zealand financial services firm processed millions of dollars in transfers for high-risk clients including a convicted U.S. fraudster, a Belarusian oligarch close to Aleksandr Lukashenko, and a British man later convicted in Europe’s “cum-ex” tax fraud.

Australia’s financial intelligence agency on Friday launched two supervisory campaigns targeting the country’s virtual assets sector, stepping up oversight of crypto businesses ahead of sweeping AML reforms, the Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre (AUSTRAC) said in a statement.

Artificial intelligence is amplifying the cyber threats facing the global financial system and could trigger a system-wide shock unless regulators and banks build stronger defenses, the International Monetary Fund warned Thursday.

Monaco’s financial markets watchdog has fined UBS €6 million for “numerous serious breaches” in anti-money-laundering and counterterrorism financing controls.

The United States on Thursday imposed sanctions on a Cuban military-controlled conglomerate, one of its top executives, and a Cuban nickel-mining joint venture, in the first round of designations under a new executive order targeting the island-nation. 

Ecuador’s financial regulators have launched a joint probe into possible money laundering at Banco Guayaquil, the country’s third-largest bank by net profit.

Brazilian federal police are targeting Senator Ciro Nogueira, a powerful ally of former President Jair Bolsonaro, as part of an expanding probe into the failed Banco Master.

The U.S. Treasury Department on Thursday imposed sanctions on Iraq’s deputy oil minister, three senior leaders of Iran-aligned militias, and four Iraqi companies, accusing them of diverting Iraqi oil to benefit Iran’s government and its proxy forces.

The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) has removed Singapore from its enhanced follow-up list but the city-state’s beneficial-ownership safeguards, money-laundering prosecutions, and proliferation-financing controls are still falling short of the risks it faces as one of the world’s largest financial centers.

China’s top financial regulator has quietly told the country’s largest banks to suspend new loans to five Chinese refiners recently sanctioned by the United States over their ties to Iranian oil, even as Beijing publicly orders companies to ignore those same U.S. measures.