Category: Prosecutions

Singapore, 16 August 2023… The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) said today that it had worked closely with the Commercial Affairs Department (CAD) to facilitate the development of the case that led to the Police’s arrest, on 15 August, of 10 individuals for suspected involvement in offences including forgery and/or money laundering and resistance to lawful apprehension [1] . MAS has also been collaborating closely with CAD to identify potentially tainted funds and assets in our financial system and prevent their dissipation. 2 Intelligence and information from suspicious transaction reports (STRs) filed by financial institutions (FIs) in Singapore had earlier…

BRITISH gambling operator Betfred has been told to pay Stg£3.25M by the industry regulator after AML and social responsibility failures. The Gambling Commission said Betfred, registered as Done Bros (Cash Betting) Limited, breached licence conditions between January 2021 and December 2022. The firm runs 1,750 high street betting shops, as well as a website and an app. The Gambling Commission investigation found Betfred had insufficient controls in place to protect new customers, or to monitor “high velocity spend” and duration of play. Its AML failures included: poor record keeping and its financial alerts (thresholds) were set too highfailing to consistently…

N26, the German-based digital bank, is facing an extension of anti-money laundering (AML) measures imposed by the German regulator BaFin, as the watchdog continues to express concerns over the bank’s compliance controls. The extension comes after BaFin had fined N26 €4.25 million in 2021 for lax money laundering controls and had subsequently imposed a temporary cap on the number of new customers the bank could onboard each month. The temporary cap, initially set at 50,000 new customers a month, will remain in place, and BaFin has taken additional steps to closely monitor the bank’s progress. An audit presence has been…

Judge Helen Boyle said a common feature of money-laundering cases was that people hoped to emulate the high life apparently enjoyed by others. A young man was wined and dined in Dublin by “currency traders” but when they told him to make “no noise” about €10,000 landing in his bank account he found himself at the centre of a money-laundering investigation. Judge Helen Boyle told the young man that people involving themselves in this crime often believed there was easy money to be made but she said that everyone had to work for their income. Detective Garda Michelle Quinn said…

POLICE in Italy, Belgium and Germany today carried out joint operations against the food and car companies used by the Italian mob to launder money and traffic drugs. The operation on Monday led to 31 arrests of ‘Ndrangheta suspects who allegedly used its well-established network to transport mainly cocaine from South America to Germany and Italy via several European ports. “To this end, the organised crime group (OCG) set up businesses in Germany to facilitate the drug smuggling. To cover its drug transports, the OCG used international companies trading in cars and food,” Europol said. During the joint action day,…

Britain’s Gambling Commission has agreed a six-figure settlement with online gaming operator SkillOnNet for social responsibility and anti-money laundering failures. The operator will pay £305,150 in lieu of a financial penalty as a part of its settlement, with the proceeds to be directed to socially responsible causes. The penalty relates to breaches of the Licence Conditions and Codes of Practice (LCCP) and follows a regulatory review which found that the operator had insufficient policies, procedures and controls to comply with its Anti-Money Laundering (AML) responsibilities. The review also found deficiencies in SkillOnNet’s responsible gambling policies, procedures, controls and practices, including…

A former haulage firm owner jailed for moving drugs and dirty cash across Europe has been ordered to pay back £630,000. Thomas Maher, aged 42, of Wiltshire Close, Warrington, was sentenced to 14 years and eight months in prison in December 2020.Thomas MaherEvidence obtained by the National Crime Agency as part of Operation Venetic – the UK law enforcement response to the takedown of encrypted global communications service EncroChat – showed that he operated a transportation network spanning Europe, moving drugs into the UK and Ireland and the profits in the other direction. In one exchange of messages with a…

The National Crime Agency has dismantled a network of criminal cash couriers that laundered more than £100m by smuggling it out of the UK to Dubai in the UAE. Custody images of Beatrice Auty, Jonathan Johnson and Jo Emma LarvinFrom left to right: Beatrice Auty, Jonathan Johnson and Jo Emma Larvin Eleven of the couriers have now been convicted, following yesterday’s guilty verdicts returned in the trial of Beatrice Auty, 26, from London; Jonathan Johnson, 55, and Jo Emma Larvin, 44, both from Ripon in North Yorkshire, and Amy Harrison, 27, from Worcester Park in Surrey, at Isleworth Crown Court.…

The Prosecutor’s Office charged six people with money laundering crimes Monday, in relation to the now-defunct Tallinn branch of Danske Bank. According to the charge sheet, the former employees of the foreign banking unit of the Danske Bank Estonia branch – five men and one woman – together orchestrated large-scale money laundering at the Estonian branch of Danske in the years 2007 to 2015, in so doing intentionally concealing the real origins of the funds suspected criminal origin which were transferred to accounts at Danske. Evidence gathered in pre-trial proceedings found defendants provided money laundering services to the tune of…

BRITAIN’S Gambling Commission today fined 32Red and Platinum Gaming with a €7.1M fine for AML and other failings. The Commission said the penalty on the online operator owned by Kindred Group Plc was also to includes social responsibility failures. “These failures highlight clearly that both operators failed to interact with customers in a way which minimises the risk of them experiencing harms associated with gambling,” said Kay Roberts, executive director of the Gambling Commission. The regulator said financial triggers for anti-money laundering reviews at 32Red were too high and not appropriate to effectively manage money laundering and terrorist financing risks,…

ALEXANDRIA, Va. – A Belize City, Belize, man was extradited to the United States Tuesday on charges of laundering tens of millions of dollars of drug proceeds on behalf of notorious international drug trafficking organizations. According to court documents, Jianxing Chen, 42, led and controlled a network of couriers who transported cash generated by the domestic sale of controlled substances. Some of the cash came from cocaine sales throughout the United States – including Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles, New York, Atlanta, as well as in the Eastern District of Virginia.  At Chen’s direction, couriers transported drug money across the country…

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has fined Al Rayan Bank PLC (Al Rayan) £4,023,600 for failing to put in place adequate anti-money laundering (AML) controls. Between 1 April 2015 and 30 November 2017, Al Rayan allowed money to pass through the bank and be used within the UK without carrying out appropriate checks. The firm failed to adequately check its customers’ Source of Wealth and Source of Funds when it was required to make sure the money was not connected to financial crime.  The failings were made worse by the lack of proper training provided to staff about how to handle…

A St. Louis man was sentenced to 19 years and seven months in prison after admitting to his involvement in a methamphetamine operation in southern Illinois. Terrence Thompson, 35, pled guilty to one count of conspiracy to launder monetary instruments. According to court records, Thompson conspired with the co-defendants to distribute more than 500 grams of methamphetamine in the Southern District of Illinois. Law enforcement conducted a search warrant on Thompson’s residence and recovered more than 10 kilograms of methamphetamine. Members of the conspiracy utilized various payment methods to deal the illegal narcotics, including CashApp, cashier’s checks, bank transfers and…

Deutsche Bank AG settled a probe by Frankfurt prosecutors looking into whether the bank violated money-laundering prevention rules for 7.01 million euros ($7.1 million). The bank agreed to pay the amount and accepted an administrative penalty notice, the lender said in a statement. Frankfurt prosecutors confirmed the end of the investigation, which found the bank failed to file 701 reports of suspicious activities. Deutsche Bank acted “thoughtlessly,” they said. The settlement comes less than three months after law enforcement officials raided Deutsche Bank’s headquarters in Frankfurt as part of the investigation. The bank had processed payments related to the extended…

The U.K.’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) said Thursday that it fined U.K.-based Ghana International Bank PLC about GBP5.8 million (US$7.1 million), for alleged failures in its anti-money-laundering and counter-terrorist-financing controls in relation to its correspondent-banking activities. By using correspondent-banking relationships, banks can gain access to financial services in various jurisdictions and provide cross-border payment services to customers. The regulator said that no money laundering was detected, but that between 2012 and 2016, the bank failed to perform required checks on its established relationships with overseas banks and assess those banks’ anti-money-laundering controls. As a result, the FCA said the risk…

A prosecutor has identified more than $60 million that he believes was laundered through Credit Suisse Group AG, in the precursor to what would be just the second Swiss criminal indictment ever against a major local lender. Geneva’s top financial-crime prosecutor, Yves Bertossa, identified a series of 8 transactions the bank failed to prevent between 2008 and 2014 at a hearing last week, which he said constituted aggravated money laundering by the Swiss lender, according to people familiar with the investigation. Patrice Lescaudron, the fraudster at the heart of the case, faked signatures and contrived dummy portfolio statements to illegally…