Illicit Finance

The U.S. Treasury Department on Thursday launched a set of initiatives to investigate what it called “rampant government benefits fraud” in Minnesota, including the imposition of new reporting requirements for financial institutions. 

Two UK-registered cryptocurrency exchanges, Zedcex and Zedxion, operated as front companies for an infrastructure that processed approximately $1 billion in funds linked to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), according to new analysis from TRM Labs. 

Spanish National Police, working with Germany’s Bavarian State Criminal Police Office and supported by Europol, arrested 34 people in Spain during an operation against the international criminal organization known as “Black Axe,” Europol announced. 

An elite unit of Portugal’s Public Prosecutor’s Office has taken over a money-laundering investigation involving Elvira Gavrilova Paterson, a Ukrainian movie producer who helped promote alleged crypto frauds linked to Russian entrepreneur Vladimir Okhotnikov, according to the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. 

A former TD Bank employee pleaded guilty to conspiring to launder monetary instruments after prosecutors said he used his position to help a money-laundering network move hundreds of millions of dollars through the institution. 

Amid all of the spectacle that has come with the U.S. capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, federal prosecutors have quietly amended a key claim they leveled against the South American leader last year. They no longer assert that the drug-trafficking organization he allegedly led—“Cartel de los Soles”—really exists. 

Botswana is weighing a “golden passport” program that would grant citizenship to foreigners making a one-off investment of up to about $100,000, as the country searches for fresh revenue streams.

Japan’s rapidly aging population is creating a sprawling new target for financial abuse, with older people experiencing cognitive decline controlling assets worth almost half the country’s GDP.

Iran is offering to sell ballistic missiles, drones, warships, and other advanced weapons systems to foreign governments in exchange for payment in cryptocurrency, the Financial Times reported.

UK law firms are preparing for more stringent oversight of their anti-money laundering (AML) programs after the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) was designated as the compliance supervisor for the legal sector, The Guardian reported.