Proliferation Financing

U.S. officials believe Chinese companies have been negotiating arms sales to Iran and plotting to route the weapons through third countries to disguise their origin.

The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) has removed Singapore from its enhanced follow-up list but the city-state’s beneficial-ownership safeguards, money-laundering prosecutions, and proliferation-financing controls are still falling short of the risks it faces as one of the world’s largest financial centers.

OFAC designated 35 entities and individuals it said help run Iran’s shadow-banking system, focusing on private companies known as “rahbars” that move money for sanctioned Iranian banks through foreign shell companies and front-company accounts.

Five of the world’s largest banks have been drawn into allegations that they unwittingly processed payments tied to a sanctions-evasion and money-laundering scheme benefiting Iran.

Ukraine is seeing early signs that sanctions are disrupting Russia’s access to some foreign technology used in Shahed drones, although newly manufactured Western and Asian components are still being found in the weapons.

Drift Protocol, the largest decentralized perpetual futures exchange on the Solana blockchain, was exploited for about $286 million in a hack that blockchain analytics firm Elliptic said bore multiple indicators of a possible North Korean link.

An Irish alumina refinery owned by Russian metals group Rusal is part of a supply chain that appears to end with Russian arms manufacturers involved in the war in Ukraine, according to new reporting by The Guardian that cites leaked records and public trade data.

Gaps in the international oversight of offshore virtual-asset firms have made it possible for criminals to commit large-scale fraud, money laundering, and terrorism financing beyond the reach of most supervisory bodies, according to FATF.

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. 

The U.S. Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) on Thursday proposed a Section 311 “special measure” that, if finalized, would cut MBaer Merchant Bank AG off from the American financial system.