Illicit Finance

Hungary has recovered and returned less than a fifth of EU funds flagged for potential fraud over the past decade, according to data from the bloc’s anti-fraud watchdog reported by the Financial Times. 

The trial of Russian businessman Dmitry Klyuev, accused by French prosecutors of laundering proceeds of the $230 million Magnitsky Affair fraud through luxury purchases in France, opened in Paris on Monday. 

Iranian-linked wealth has continued to find its way into London property despite years of Western sanctions, with luxury homes, apartments, and a boutique hotel tied to figures accused by British and U.S. authorities of supporting Tehran’s sanctions-evasion networks.

The Trump administration is weighing whether to designate Brazil’s two largest drug gangs as terrorist organizations, a step that could expand the U.S. sanctions toolkit to include financial restrictions on the groups and their associates.

The Federal Trade Commission has warned four of the largest payment processors against denying customers access to financial services because of their political or religious views.

UBS AG processed an $8-million transfer for Ghislaine Maxwell in late 2019 that ultimately helped fund the cash purchase of the New Hampshire estate where she later went into hiding before her 2020 arrest.

Florida shell companies and virtual office addresses are at the center of an expanding international investigation into at least $260 million in funds tied to Argentina’s top soccer authority.

The collapse of British property lender Market Financial Solutions (MFS) is exposing what Bloomberg described as an alleged collateral fraud that may leave lenders facing as much as £1.3 billion in losses and is raising new concerns about due diligence in private credit. 

Britain has expanded its crackdown on Southeast Asia’s scam economy by sanctioning Xinbi, a Chinese-language crypto marketplace that officials say helped service scam centers, along with Legend Innovation Co., the operator of Cambodia’s “#8 Park” compound, and six individuals allegedly tied to the network.

An entrepreneur who used ties to prominent academics to raise nearly $27 million for a cluster of startups ran what U.S. regulators described as an “IP-rich” and “Ponzi-like” scheme that recycled new investor money to repay earlier backers while funding a lavish personal lifestyle.