Money Laundering

Drug cartels and other criminal groups are increasingly using cryptocurrencies and a growing “gig” workforce of freelance brokers and couriers to launder cash and evade law enforcement, Bloomberg Businessweek reported.

The mayor of Ecuador’s largest port city was arrested Tuesday on charges of money laundering and tax evasion, as prosecutors widened a case that also swept up his brother and other members of his inner circle, the Associated Press said. 

The Council of Europe’s anti-money-laundering body on Tuesday published a new report on how criminals exploit crypto-assets to launder illicit proceeds, fund terrorism, and evade sanctions.

El Salvador’s top prosecutor has effectively halted a money-laundering investigation into a Venezuela-financed oil venture whose funds flowed into bank accounts linked to President Nayib Bukele.

The fight against corruption is seen as weakening across the globe in 2025, with “bold, accountable leadership” in decline, according to Transparency’s International’s newly released Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI). 

Two U.S. senators reintroduced a bipartisan bill that would subject informal-value transfers and blank checks to anti-financial crime laws and strengthen the hand of prosecutors pursuing money-laundering charges. 

Last month, the dollar-pegged stablecoin created by the Trump family’s crypto firm, World Liberty Financial, reached an important milestone: the total circulation of USD1 exceeded $5 billion for the first time, ranking it among the world’s top cryptocurrencies, according to recent reporting by The New York Times. 

Brazil’s Finance Ministry has urged the country’s central bank to tighten regulation around pooled and escrow accounts that authorities say are being used by bad actors to circumvent asset freezes, according to Reuters.

A massive corruption trial that spanned a decade ended last week in Turks and Caicos with the convictions of the jurisdiction’s former premier, his brother, and a one-time governmental minister, the Miami Herald said. 

The U.S. Justice Department is increasingly targeting corrupt Mexican money brokers in an attempt to disrupt the financial networks used to launder cartel drug proceeds via cryptocurrency and other means, the Associated Press reported.