Illicit Finance

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez is facing renewed political pressure after a judge ordered his wife, Begoña Gómez, to stand trial, deepening a corruption controversy that already involves several of his relatives and close associates.

Anthropic withheld its new artificial intelligence model, Mythos, from a broad public release after internal testing showed it could autonomously find and exploit serious software flaws, alarming company researchers and prompting banks and government agencies to move quickly to assess the threat.

The European Union’s new anti-money-laundering (AML) supervisor on Thursday launched two consultations on draft rules intended to tighten how companies assess their financial-crime risks and apply compliance controls across corporate groups. 

Norway’s financial watchdog has found “serious deficiencies” in anti-money-laundering compliance at Svenska Handelsbanken AB’s Norwegian branch.

The U.S. Treasury Department on Thursday imposed sanctions on Nicaraguan government officials, firms operating in Nicaragua’s gold sector, and individuals tied to the forcible seizure of a U.S.-owned mining asset. 

Britain’s National Crime Agency (NCA) has charged shipping financier John Michael Ormerod with alleged money laundering and breaches of Russia sanctions.

Fraud appears to be worsening in the UK’s insurance sector, driven in large part by the submission of phony claims backed by AI-altered images. 

New details about the allegations against the rapper Gims have emerged after French authorities charged the Congolese music star with money laundering linked to millions of euros in suspicious transactions.

The U.S. Treasury imposed a fresh round of Iran-related sanctions on Wednesday, targeting what it described as the illicit oil-shipping empire of Iranian magnate Mohammad Hossein Shamkhani and a Hezbollah-linked oil-for-gold laundering network tied to Venezuela. 

Telegram is still hosting Xinbi Guarantee, a Chinese-language black market that British officials have levied sanctions on and accused of facilitating crypto scams and human trafficking.