Year: 2026

EU Signs Protocol to Strengthen Asset Recovery and Anti-Money Laundering Cooperation

Money Laundering
The European Union has signed the Additional Protocol to the Council of Europe’s Warsaw Convention on money laundering, confiscation and terrorist financing, on 14 October 2026, the day it opened for signature in Strasbourg. The Council of the EU authorised the signature by decision the previous day. The Protocol modernises the international framework for tracing, freezing, managing and confiscating criminal assets. Each party must establish or designate an asset recovery office, and asset recovery and asset management offices will be required to cooperate directly and within set deadlines. It also widens information sharing, allows joint investigation teams, regulates asset-sharing between…

Australia’s Star Entertainment Accepts $183.6 Million Anti-Money Laundering Penalty

Money Laundering
The Star Entertainment Group has said it will accept the A$260 million (about US$183.6 million) penalty imposed by Australia’s Federal Court for breaches of anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing laws, ending civil proceedings brought by AUSTRAC in 2022. Justice Cameron Moore ordered A$195 million against The Star Sydney and A$65 million against its Queensland operations, payable in four instalments over 19 months. AUSTRAC had sought A$400 million and Star had argued for A$100 million. The court found that between 2016 and 2022 the casinos operated without a compliant AML/CTF programme and failed to monitor customers adequately, allowing more than 1,200…

Why Explainable AI Will Decide the AML Compliance Race

Money Laundering
FinTech Global reports on new analysis from Napier AI arguing that the debate in anti-money laundering has moved on from whether AI belongs in financial crime compliance to how it can be governed and explained. According to Napier AI’s Dr Janet Bastiman, whoever sets the first credible framework for explainable AI in AML will in effect give the rest of the world its template. The analysis groups jurisdictions by regulatory posture. The US, EU and Singapore are described as enthusiastic but working through fragmented rules or AI legislation not written with AML in mind. Australia, Canada and the UAE are…

Report Fraud Alert: More Than £86,000 Stolen in Nine Days by Fraudsters Posing as Amazon

Fraud
Report Fraud, the national fraud and cyber crime reporting service run by the City of London Police, has warned the public after recording 110 reports of Amazon impersonation fraud between 5 and 14 October 2026, with combined losses of £86,837, an average of more than £9,600 a day. Victims are typically contacted by phone about a supposed account problem, delivery issue or suspicious purchase, then pressured into handing over payment details or personal documents that can be used for further fraud. People aged 50 to 79 accounted for around 60 per cent of reports. Report Fraud advises people not to…

Government Unleashes £1.2 Billion Crackdown as Part of Anti-Fraud Drive

Fraud
The Department for Work and Pensions has issued its first Eligibility Verification Notice, using powers in the Public Authorities (Fraud, Error and Recovery) Act 2025. The measure asks banks to help identify benefit claimants who may hold undeclared savings or stay abroad longer than the rules allow, two significant drivers of fraud and error. The Eligibility Verification Measure is expected to save £1.2 billion by 2030/31 and forms part of a wider plan to save £14.6 billion from fraud, error and debt. It applies only to Universal Credit, Pension Credit and Employment and Support Allowance, and banks check only benefit-receiving…

FCA Stops HTX’s Crypto Promotions

Digital Currencies
The FCA has secured undertakings in the High Court from Huobi Global S.A., the company behind crypto exchange HTX (formerly Huobi), that it will not knowingly communicate unlawful financial promotions to UK consumers, including through its website, apps and social media. The undertakings run until October 2031. The FCA began proceedings in October 2025 after HTX repeatedly failed to engage, in what the regulator described as its first enforcement action against a crypto firm for illegally marketing to UK consumers. HTX has since withdrawn from the UK: deposits and new UK registrations are blocked and it has committed not to…

Outcomes FATF Plenary October 2026

Financial Crime
The Financial Action Task Force concluded its October 2026 Plenary in Paris on 30 October, the first under the UK Presidency of Giles Thomson. Delegates agreed action on evolving threats including virtual assets and fraud. Four jurisdictions were removed from the list of jurisdictions under increased monitoring (the grey list) after completing their action plans: Bulgaria, Côte d’Ivoire, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Monaco. No jurisdictions were added, reducing the grey list from 22 to 18. The call-for-action (black) list was unchanged. Following the April 2026 Ministerial Declaration, the Plenary also agreed to accelerate implementation of the FATF…

CP26/38: Financial Crime Guide Updates

Financial Crime
The FCA has opened a consultation on changes to its Financial Crime Guide, intended to help firms assess and strengthen their financial crime systems and controls. The proposals draw on recent supervisory work and wider developments in the risk landscape. Areas covered include fraud, reflecting lessons from multi-firm work; proliferation financing, where the FCA proposes fuller guidance on risks and controls; and expectations for firms using Banking-as-a-Service models, including outsourced, white-labelled and embedded finance arrangements. The updates also anticipate cryptoasset firms coming under FCA authorisation. The Guide contains no new rules but sets out self-assessment questions and examples of good…

Nature Credits: Europe’s Next Financial Crime Blind Spot

Financial Crime
In a guest commentary for RUSI, Albertus Geldenhuys argues that the European Commission’s plans for a nature credits market have not yet considered financial crime. The Commission’s 2025 roadmap deals with greenwashing and double counting but does not address fraud or money laundering, or say who in the market must carry out customer due diligence. He draws on the EU carbon market’s history of VAT fraud, registry breaches and late application of AML safeguards, and on Interpol’s typology of carbon market crime, arguing that nature credits are, if anything, more exposed. Outcomes are hard to verify independently, and payments flow…

FATF Has Declared War on Fraud. Not All Its Allies Can Afford to Fight

Fraud
In this RUSI commentary, Georgia Jones welcomes the UK’s decision to put fraud at the centre of its FATF presidency, noting that no previous presidency has organised its agenda so explicitly around a single underlying crime. She points to estimates that global scams cost around $442 billion in 2025, with profits now comparable to the drugs trade. Jones argues that many of the countries where scam operations are based lack the resources to respond, even though the financial intelligence units, reporting duties and central bank powers that FATF has spent decades promoting could be redirected towards fraud at relatively modest…

American Express Fined $350m Over AML Failures

Money Laundering, Prosecutions
US banking regulators have fined American Express National Bank $350 million over weaknesses in its anti-money laundering controls. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) imposed the civil money penalty alongside a cease-and-desist order, while the Federal Reserve issued a separate order against the bank’s parent companies. According to the OCC, the bank’s Bank Secrecy Act and AML programme suffered from inadequate resources, staff lacking expertise, internal control gaps, weak independent testing and poor training. Its risk assessment concentrated on its relatively small deposit business rather than its much larger credit and charge card operations. The regulator said…

Ex-Hungarian Minister Detained in $53m Graft Probe

Corruption
A Budapest court has ordered Balázs Hankó, a former culture minister under Viktor Orbán, to be held in pre-trial detention over allegations that he misused around 17.3 billion forints (about $53 million) while he was also president of Hungary’s National Cultural Fund. The detention followed a parliamentary vote lifting Hankó’s immunity. It is one of the most prominent steps so far in the anti-corruption drive launched by Prime Minister Péter Magyar, whose government took office after ending Orbán’s 16 years in power. Days earlier, authorities also detained Miklós Seszták, national development minister from 2014 to 2018, in a separate bribery…

EPPO Indicts Two Polish Nationals in €100m Electronics VAT Fraud Scheme

Fraud
The European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO) in Katowice has charged two Polish nationals over their alleged roles in a cross-border VAT fraud and money laundering scheme built around the trade in electronic devices. Invoices used by the accused in Poland are said to exceed €100 million. Prosecutors estimate the wider scheme cost around €47 million in unpaid VAT in Belgium and €22 million in the Netherlands. The indictment is the first to come out of a broader EPPO investigation into a trading network operating across Austria, Belgium, Germany, Latvia, the Netherlands and Poland. Eight people were arrested in Belgium, the…

Deloitte’s Cyprus Office Helped Abramovich Firms Relocate Billions in Assets in Apparent Bid to Sidestep Tax and Transparency

Tax Evasion
An investigation by OCCRP, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism and the Cyprus Investigative Reporting Network, based on leaked emails and financial records, reports that Deloitte’s Cyprus affiliate signed off on backdated paperwork for companies beneficially owned by Roman Abramovich. According to the reporting, the documents allowed assets including bank deposits, yachts and luxury property to be treated as having been transferred retroactively from Cyprus companies to entities in the British Virgin Islands, outside the reach of Cypriot tax and disclosure rules. In one case cited, financial statements were certified to show a Cyprus company had offloaded assets worth close to…

Five Arrested in €1m Fraud Against NATO

Fraud
Five people have been arrested in Norway and properties searched in Germany and Romania in a Eurojust-coordinated investigation into suspected fraud and bribery against the NATO Support and Procurement Agency (NSPA). The investigation centres on a company providing port services to NATO warships, which is suspected of submitting fraudulent invoices over several years. Losses to NATO member countries are estimated at more than €1 million, although the full figure is still being established. The allegations also include bribery through an intermediary. Norway’s economic crime unit, Økokrim, said those arrested in the Bergen area have been charged with aggravated fraud against…

Bank of America Fined $1.21bn Over AML Failures

Money Laundering, Prosecutions
US authorities have imposed more than $1.21 billion in penalties on Bank of America over failures in its anti-money laundering controls and apparent sanctions breaches. The Treasury described the FinCEN penalty as the third largest in its history. FinCEN found the bank failed to report more than $5 billion in suspicious transactions, over $1 billion of which involved priority risks such as Chinese money laundering networks and activity along the US southwestern border. The bank admitted wilfully violating the Bank Secrecy Act, including failing to maintain an adequate AML programme and to carry out due diligence on correspondent accounts for…

EU Blacklists Nearly 1,600 in Russian Defence Firms and Executives

Sanctions
The Council of the European Union has added 826 Russian companies and 743 of their chief executives to its sanctions list, the largest single set of listings it has ever agreed. The designations bring the total under the regime protecting Ukraine’s territorial integrity to nearly 4,600. The package targets mid-level suppliers described as the core of Russia’s defence industry, including makers of components for ballistic missiles, drones and aircraft. Together the listed companies are said to have annual turnover of at least €20 billion and more than 250,000 employees. Those listed face an asset freeze and EU travel ban, and…

Cambodia Cracked Down on Banks Allegedly Linked to Cyber-Scams. The IMF Says the Problem Persists

Fraud
OCCRP reports that Cambodia’s central bank, the National Bank of Cambodia, has shut down around half a dozen banks since last year as international attention has focused on the country’s role as a hub for cyber-scams, with scam proceeds alleged to have flowed into its financial institutions. Despite the closures, the International Monetary Fund’s latest annual review of Cambodia flagged persistent scam activity as a threat to growth and urged the authorities to identify and deal with potential links between banks and criminal groups and to close gaps in licensing. The US Treasury has also sanctioned Cambodian financial institutions over…

How Trump Has Rewritten the Corruption Rulebook at Home and Abroad

Corruption
Ahead of the 3 November US midterm elections, OCCRP’s North America editor Kevin G. Hall has published an explainer assessing how US anti-corruption policy has changed during President Trump’s second term, drawing on interviews with experts. The piece examines changes to US anti-corruption laws, institutions and enforcement, including scaled-back enforcement and the loss of beneficial ownership data, which a federal spending watchdog has said hampers fraud detection in government contracting. It also considers the effects abroad and whether Democrats have a plan to reverse course. The White House did not respond to OCCRP’s request for comment before publication. OCCRP discloses…

China Sentences Ex Anti-Graft Official to Suspended Death for Bribery

Bribery
A Chinese court has handed a suspended death sentence to Wang Huimin, a former senior anti-graft official at the China Securities Regulatory Commission, for accepting more than 436 million yuan (about $65 million) in bribes. The court found that Wang took bribes in exchange for helping companies and individuals with business operations and fundraising while holding posts in Xinjiang and at the securities regulator. It said the scale of the bribes and the harm caused warranted the death penalty, but granted a two-year reprieve, citing among other things his voluntary disclosure of some facts. Under Chinese law, a suspended death…

FCA reports surge in Money Mule Account closures to combat £100bn laundering crises

Money Laundering
UK financial firms shut 238,396 accounts suspected of being used by money mules during 2025, according to survey data released by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). The total has risen every year, from 184,935 closures in 2023 and 233,269 in 2024. The regulator cautions that part of the increase may reflect growing customer numbers and better detection, but says the figures still show how deeply mule activity is embedded in the banking system. Customers aged 26 to 39 accounted for the largest share of closures at 91,073, with those aged 25 and under close behind at 85,425. The fastest growth…

Anti-money laundering strategy a ‘turning point’ in tackling dirty money, says UK government

Money Laundering
The UK government has presented its Anti-Money Laundering and Asset Recovery Strategy 2026-2029 as a turning point in the fight against illicit finance. Published on 15 September, the 101-page strategy carries a foreword from security minister Dan Jarvis and economic secretary to the Treasury Lucy Rigby, who say they want the UK to be a hostile environment for dirty money. The National Crime Agency (NCA) puts the amount laundered through the UK or UK corporate structures at more than £100bn a year. At least £550m backs the plan: £520m from the Economic Crime Levy paid by firms supervised under the…

Hundreds of new officers to hunt down dirty money networks

Money Laundering
Five hundred new officers to be recruited in a £500 million crackdown on money laundering, as part of the government’s Anti-Money Laundering and Asset Recovery Strategy. Hundreds of new officers will be recruited to track dirty money, disrupt organised crime networks and seize criminal assets under a major new crackdown. New officers will be deployed across police forces, the NCA and the CPS to follow the money behind serious and organised crime, including through Russian and other international money laundering networks. The new investigators will focus on going after the kingpins behind Britain’s dirty money trade. By blocking and seizing…

Veronica Stratford-Tuke Reacts to the UK Government’s New Anti-Money Laundering and Asset Recovery Strategy

Money Laundering
Veronica Stratford-Tuke, a Research Fellow in the Centre for Finance and Security at RUSI, has given a qualified welcome to the UK government’s Anti-Money Laundering and Asset Recovery Strategy for 2026 to 2029. She notes the National Crime Agency’s long-standing estimate that more than £100 billion is laundered through or within the UK every year, activity she ties to organised criminals, sanctions evaders and hostile states. She is positive about the strategy’s ambition for law enforcement and the private sector to concentrate together on the most harmful laundering and move away from box-ticking. Her warning is that stronger policy on…

Most money laundering arrests involve people under the age of 30

Money Laundering
Research by academics at Cardiff University and the University of the West of England (UWE) has found that most people arrested for money laundering in England and Wales are under 30. Freedom of Information responses from 36 police forces show 8,956 adults under 30 were arrested for offences under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 between January 2020 and January 2025, out of 14,493 recorded arrests across all ages. Those arrests led to 7,735 charges. Offending is most common among 18 to 29 year olds, and Ministry of Justice figures for the same period show 108 children and 420 young…

Detecting and countering misuse of AI: September 2026

Fraud
Anthropic’s latest threat intelligence report describes operations it disrupted between December 2025 and August 2026 in which people tried to misuse its Claude AI models. The cases span seven areas: cyber operations, influence operations, surveillance, scams and fraud, biological misuse, conventional weapons development and illicit model distillation. The company says the examples are the most notable and novel it has seen, not typical misuse, and that in each case it banned the accounts involved, strengthened its safeguards and shared intelligence with authorities and industry partners where appropriate. The central fraud case concerns a China-based app studio that used Claude to…

China’s Draft Anti-Cross-Border Corruption Law – How Will It Affect Foreign Companies?

Bribery & Corruption
China has published a draft Anti-Cross-Border Corruption Law that would extend its anti-graft campaign to bribery that crosses borders. The National People’s Congress Standing Committee released the draft on 26 August 2026 for public comment until 26 September. The draft reaches three groups: Chinese citizens and China-domiciled companies, including foreign-owned ones, that bribe foreign officials or officials of international institutions; foreign individuals and overseas companies that bribe such officials inside China; and foreign individuals and overseas companies that bribe Chinese public officials, state organs, state-owned enterprises or public institutions. It also covers embezzlement, abuse of power and similar misconduct committed…

Guns, Camouflage, and Facebook: How Colombia’s Biggest ‘Narcoinfluencer’ Weaponized Social Media

Organised Crime
An OCCRP feature examines the rise and death of Nain Pérez, a 27-year-old known online as ‘Bendito Menor’, who was a commander in the Self-Defense Forces of the Sierra Nevada (ACSN), an illegal armed group in north-eastern Colombia. Pérez built a large social media following by mixing footage of his armed lifestyle with romantic and personal posts. He was shot dead on 4 September in a late-night government operation that Colombia’s president had personally ordered. His girlfriend, Rosa Angélica Tarazona, known as ‘Bebecita’, was also killed. Experts quoted in the piece describe his use of social media as a sophisticated…

Ukraine Busts Crypto Fraud Network Targeting EU Victims

Fraud
Ukraine’s Security Service and National Police have dismantled a Kyiv-based cryptocurrency fraud network that allegedly targeted people in the European Union and turned over as much as $1 million a month at its peak. Investigators say the group involved several dozen people and was led by a 25-year-old IT specialist. Members posed as representatives of crypto platforms and promoted supposedly lucrative investments through Telegram channels. After being shown fake trading results, victims were directed to websites imitating legitimate crypto services. Those sites carried malicious ‘drainer’ code that let the fraudsters empty a victim’s wallet once it was connected and a…

Australia Probes Western Union Over Possible Money Laundering Risks

Money Laundering
AUSTRAC, Australia’s financial intelligence agency and anti-money laundering regulator, has opened an investigation into Western Union Financial Services Australia and its US-based parent company. The inquiry concerns how the companies manage money laundering and terrorism financing risk, covering their anti-money laundering programme, transaction monitoring and governance. It will also test whether their systems can detect known laundering methods and suspicious transactions linked to child sexual exploitation and terrorism financing. The investigation follows earlier engagement with the regulator and an external audit ordered in 2025. Western Union runs one of the world’s largest international money transfer networks, including cash-based cross-border payments,…

South Africa Arrests Suspect in $37m Hospital Corruption Case

Corruption
South Africa’s Hawks investigative unit has arrested a 37-year-old man at O.R. Tambo International Airport in Johannesburg as he returned from abroad. Authorities have not named him. He is accused in an investigation into corruption, procurement fraud and money laundering involving 635 million rand, about $37 million, at Tembisa Hospital. Investigators allege that hospital officials colluded with service providers to keep individual transactions below 500,000 rand so that formal tender procedures did not apply. He is expected to face fraud, corruption and money laundering charges in a Specialised Commercial Crimes Court. The arrest forms part of a wider probe into…

Australia Charges Accountants in Multimillion-Dollar Loan Fraud Scheme

Fraud
Police in New South Wales have charged three accountants with helping an organised crime syndicate obtain tens of millions of dollars in fraudulent loans, taking the number of people charged in the investigation to 33. The syndicate is alleged to have begun by using stolen identities to finance luxury vehicles that did not exist, so-called ‘ghost cars’, before moving into large-scale personal, business and home-loan fraud against several financial institutions. Police allege the accountants abused their professional positions to approve false applications. A 46-year-old accounting firm director is charged over documents linked to $16.2 million in loans, while two others,…

UK Freezes $72m London Townhouse in Connection to Sanctioned Prince Group Associate

Fraud, Sanctions
UK authorities froze a townhouse in Belgravia, London, in late August 2026. Land Registry records show the property was bought in October 2023 for £53 million, about $72 million, by Zhao Chen, a China-born Cypriot citizen. She has not been sanctioned. The freeze relates to her husband, Wu An Ming, whom the UK has designated as an asset freeze target. OCCRP reports that Wu An Ming is one of several identities used by Hu Xiaowei, a China-born man sanctioned by both the UK and the US over alleged involvement with the Prince Group. Until December 2025 Zhao Chen was a…

Belgian Court Rules Treasury Lacked Authority to Reject Release of Russian Assets

Sanctions
Belgium’s Council of State, the country’s highest administrative court, ruled on 11 September that a July 2024 decision by the Belgian treasury refusing to release frozen Russian assets was unlawful, because the Administrator General of the Treasury did not have the legal competence to take it. The ruling was first reported by De Tijd. The case dates back to January 2023, when Russia’s BCS Bank asked for securities and cash held at Brussels-based Euroclear to be unfrozen. The assets had been blocked under 2022 EU sanctions on Russia’s National Settlement Depository, and the treasury had said the bank failed to…

UK Fraud Trial Opens Over $119m Car Investment Scheme

Fraud
Two businessmen are standing trial at Southwark Crown Court in London over an alleged investor fraud of about £88 million, or $119 million, linked to a car investment scheme, according to the Serious Fraud Office (SFO). The defendants are Reginald Larry-Cole, founder of the Raedex Consortium, and Scott Martin, its former chief executive. Each faces three counts of fraud and both have pleaded not guilty. Raedex operated investment schemes including Buy2Let Cars, PayGo Cars, Wheels4Sure and Rent2Own Cars, which offered investors returns from fleets of leased vehicles. The companies went into administration in 2021, leaving hundreds of investors facing losses.…

U.S. Charges Tech CEO Russian Over Hidden Ownership

Due Diligence
US prosecutors have charged Lee Reiber, chief executive of digital forensics firm Oxygen Forensics, and Russian national Oleg Davydov with conspiracy to commit wire fraud. They allege the company concealed its Russian ownership and Russia-based software development while selling forensic tools to US government agencies. According to the complaint, Oxygen presented itself to government customers as an independent American company, when Davydov and four other Russian nationals owned and controlled it through a holding company in Cyprus. The same five also owned Moscow-based Oxygen Software LLC, now MKO Systems LLC, where Davydov was chief technology officer. The developers who wrote…

EPPO Arrests Suspect in $79m Cross-Border VAT Fraud Probe

Fraud
The European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO) has made a further arrest in its ‘Escape Room’ investigation into a VAT carousel fraud network operating across six EU member states. The network is alleged to have used hundreds of shell companies and fictitious invoices to disguise trade in electronic devices and evade VAT in Austria, Belgium, Germany, Latvia, the Netherlands and Poland. EPPO estimates losses of at least $79 million in the Netherlands and Belgium. Eight other suspects were arrested in Belgium, the Netherlands and Poland in October 2025. Prosecutors allege the man now arrested acted as a broker between companies in…