Risk Management

The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission is investigating a surge of more than $800 million in oil futures trades that occurred moments before President Trump announced on social media that he was postponing strikes on Tehran’s energy infrastructure.

Small towns, school districts, and utilities across the United States lack the staffing and basic cyberdefenses needed to fend off a new generation of AI-enabled hacking threats even as larger institutions scramble to shore up their systems.

Iran has launched a bitcoin-backed insurance service for shipping companies seeking to transit the Strait of Hormuz.

Iran’s largest cryptocurrency exchange has moved billions of dollars across two blockchains whose founders are among the most prominent backers of a digital currency venture co-founded by U.S. President Donald Trump and his family.

Britain’s National Crime Agency on Monday launched its first joint initiative with the financial industry aimed at detecting and disrupting payments by U.K. offenders who pay facilitators overseas to livestream the sexual abuse of children. 

Erebor Bank, a startup backed by billionaire Peter Thiel, has pitched senior Venezuelan officials on restoring the sanctioned country’s access to the U.S. financial system.

A resurgence of piracy off the coast of Somalia is compounding pressure on global shipping already strained by conflict in the Middle East, with multiple vessels hijacked in recent weeks and industry leaders warning of fresh strain on supply chains.

Hackers widely believed to be linked to North Korea appear to have used artificial intelligence to pull off two crypto heists in April that netted nearly $600 million. That more can be on the way is rattling the $130-billion decentralized finance sector.

Polish lawmakers on Friday approved a bill regulating cryptocurrencies as a scandal over the collapse of the country’s biggest crypto exchange widened and questions deepened over whether President Karol Nawrocki, who has twice vetoed similar measures, will sign it into law.

Financial-crime authorities across the Middle East and North Africa hold powers that look adequate on paper but fail in practice, with anti-corruption agencies unable to freeze assets, prosecutors acting as political gatekeepers, and high-risk sectors filing almost no suspicious activity reports.