Illicit Finance

The world’s top financial watchdog warned that a sharp run-up in global asset prices has left markets vulnerable to the potential for a crash given current economic and geopolitical uncertainties.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said new federal guidance on Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) is intended to ease banks’ “pain points” and shift U.S. anti-money laundering oversight toward measurable effectiveness.

Spanish authorities have seized property linked to Nikolai Kolesov, the chief executive of state-owned Russian Helicopters, on suspicion of money laundering, according to an anti-corruption group founded by the late Alexei Navalny. 

The United States has removed former Paraguayan president Horacio Cartes from its sanctions list, a shift that comes amid warmer ties between the Trump administration and President Santiago Peña’s conservative government, Bloomberg reported.

Pope Leo XIV has approved new rules that redistribute control over the Holy See’s financial investments, diluting the exclusive authority the Vatican Bank has held since 2022 and formalizing a shared model of oversight across church institutions.

NIQ, the world’s largest consumer-data provider, has been conducting business in occupied Ukraine despite international sanctions against the Russian Federation, the Financial Times reported. 

A British national pleaded guilty on Tuesday in Brooklyn federal court for his role in a fraud scheme that took nearly $100 million from victims who funded loans to fake wine collectors, Reuters said. 

The son of a Chinese-born Uyghur oligarch who allegedly ran a massive smuggling and money-laundering ring has purchased a former church in North London for more than $3 million and converted it into a mosque and cultural center, OCCRP reported. 

The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to hear an appeal from Halkbank, leaving the lender to face criminal charges over allegations that it helped Iran evade sanctions and launder billions of dollars through the American financial system.

Police in southern Brazil have arrested four people accused of running a nationwide Instagram ad scam that used AI-generated videos and images of supermodel Gisele Bündchen and other celebrities, Reuters reported.