Money Laundering

The United Arab Emirates is considering freezing billions of dollars in Iranian assets held in the Gulf state, a move that could sharply restrict Tehran’s access to foreign currency and global trade networks.

Kyiv’s assets-declaration watchdog missed multiple red flags in the filings of former Ukrainian energy minister Herman Halushchenko, according to Transparency International Ukraine. 

Star Entertainment’s ex-chief executive Matthias Bekier and former in-house lawyer Paula Martin breached their directors’ duties during the casino operator’s “Chinese money-laundering era”, the Australian Federal Court found.

Banco Master SA’s former chief executive Daniel Vorcaro was returned to custody for a second time in roughly three months as a widening probe into the collapsed lender added allegations of threats, intimidation, and illegal access to sensitive law-enforcement data.

The Trump administration is drafting a criminal indictment to potentially accuse Venezuelan interim President Delcy Rodriguez of corruption and money laundering.

The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) said that stablecoins are now commonly used in money laundering, terrorist financing, and proliferation financing schemes, and warned that peer-to-peer transfers via unhosted wallets represent a key vulnerability for the crypto ecosystem. 

Western governments are being urged to tighten controls on cryptocurrency after new research warned that criminals and hostile states have laundered an estimated $350 billion using crypto over the past two decades.

Luxembourg authorities raided the premises of EFG Bank last week as part of a preliminary investigation into the institution’s compliance with anti-money laundering (AML) and counterterrorism financing (CTF) laws.

Stablecoin issuer Tether said it has frozen about $4.2 billion of its USDT tokens over links to “illicit activity,” with most of the freezes occurring in the past three years, as authorities worldwide intensify efforts to curb crypto-related crime.

Finnish authorities are tightening scrutiny of real-estate purchases after a series of Russian-linked property deals raised fears that land and buildings near military facilities and critical infrastructure could be used for espionage or sabotage.