Fraud

French investigators have stepped up their probe into alleged corruption at Patrick Drahi’s Altice telecoms group with a series of coordinated raids across the country, seizing cash, luxury goods and other assets, Bloomberg reported.

Law enforcement raids on luxury Kyiv apartments, including one bathroom fitted with a golden toilet, and images of duffel bags stuffed with cash have plunged President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s administration into its biggest corruption crisis since he took office, the Financial Times reported. 

Singapore is facing renewed scrutiny over its defenses against dirty money after police seized hundreds of millions of dollars in assets linked to the Prince Group, a conglomerate labelled by U.S. and UK authorities as a “transnational criminal empire,” according to the Financial Times.

Meta internally projected late last year that roughly 10% of its 2024 revenue, or approximately $16 billion, would come from advertising tied to scams and banned goods, according to company documents reviewed by Reuters. 

Brazil’s central bank unveiled long-awaited rules for virtual assets on Monday, extending anti–money laundering (AML) and counterterrorism financing (CTF) obligations to crypto firms and classifying fiat-pegged crypto transactions as foreign-exchange operations, Reuters reported. 

ID thieves based in California’s San Fernando Valley and Glendale have been using the Social Security Numbers of foreign scholars who left the U.S. years ago to file hundreds of bank and credit-card applications, according to a cybercrime expert who spoke with the Los Angeles Times.

Australian authorities charged a former National Australia Bank employee they allege acted as the “gatekeeper of funds” for a Sydney crime syndicate accused of defrauding “all financial institutions,” according to a Reuters report.

HSBC Holdings Plc will take a $1.1 billion provision in its third-quarter results to cover potential liabilities tied to investor lawsuits linked to Bernard Madoff’s Ponzi scheme, Bloomberg reported.

A new legal filing alleges that a cryptocurrency promoted in January by U.S. First Lady Melania Trump was part of a sophisticated scheme that used celebrity association to lend legitimacy to token launches, according to Wired. 

One of Mexico’s most powerful drug cartels is smuggling gasoline and diesel into the Port of Ensenada with the aid of a “dark fleet” tanker and a Houston-based company, according to an investigation by Reuters.