Real Estate

Italian authorities are seizing more than €200 million ($232 million) in assets tied to late Mafia boss Matteo Messina Denaro, including funds derived from drug trafficking and laundered across Europe and beyond.

Company directors connected to Cambodia’s Prince Group, which the United States has designated a transnational criminal organization, have acquired millions of dollars in luxury Tokyo real estate.

Financial-crime authorities across the Middle East and North Africa hold powers that look adequate on paper but fail in practice, with anti-corruption agencies unable to freeze assets, prosecutors acting as political gatekeepers, and high-risk sectors filing almost no suspicious activity reports.

Ukraine’s anti-corruption agencies have named former presidential chief of staff Andriy Yermak as an official suspect in a 460-million-hryvnia ($10.5 million) money-laundering scheme, marking a significant escalation in a graft investigation that has shaken President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s government.

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.

The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) placed Austria in enhanced follow-up after finding the country’s framework for investigating and prosecuting money laundering remains weak more than a decade after similar concerns were first raised.

Accountants, lawyers and real estate agents in Australia will face multimillion-dollar fines for assisting the illicit tobacco trade under a sweeping expansion of anti-money-laundering and counterterrorism financing laws taking effect on July 1.

The Bank of Italy has flagged money-laundering risks at DeA Capital Real Estate SGR and is demanding a remedial plan, a new business strategy, and a sweeping overhaul of the asset management firm’s leadership.

U.S. officials on Wednesday struck at Southeast Asian scam compounds defrauding Americans and a global fentanyl supply chain, announcing criminal charges, sanctions, and the seizure of hundreds of fraudulent websites in a pair of coordinated enforcement actions.

Italy has passed a sweeping review of its anti-money-laundering regime but must urgently fix a suspended corporate ownership registry and tighten oversight of non-financial businesses, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) said in a report published on Thursday.