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Luxury knitwear and lingerie producers in the European Union (EU) have been banned from selling and supplying goods worth more than EUR300-a-piece to Russia, as the country’s military continues its invasion of Ukraine. The sanctions, imposed by the EU Council of Ministers bans even indirect sales via third parties to individual Russian consumers, traders and companies.…

While the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) is a shadow of its former self in the Middle East, it has spawned global affiliates and is still very much in business, posing ongoing terrorist financing threats.

At the peak of its power as a self-declared Islamic Caliphate in 2015, ISIS controlled around a third of Syria’s territory and 40%of Iraq, with some 7.7 million people under its rule.…

Bulk cash smuggling remains a favoured way for criminals to move dirty money, despite the increase in electronic means to transfer the proceeds of crime, such as new cryptocurrency services.

In its most recent 2020 National Drug Threat Assessment, the US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) said in 2019, there were more than 3,000 bulk currency seizures in the United States, with more than USD368 million taken, 62% up from the USD227 million seized in 2018 (although that followed eight years when the value of bulk cash seizures fell).…

The size of the global non-fungible token (NFT) market has exploded since the beginning of 2021 and, as ever with the growth of a novel asset, fraudsters have been creative in exploiting its sale and purchase to make dishonest gains. One benefit for fraudsters seeking to attack immature markets is unstable valuations, in this case of unique digital assets consisting of data stored in a blockchain.…

France needs to improve its AML/CFT performance regarding designated non-financial businesses and professions (DNFBPs), a latest FATF review report has concluded – although the country is generally effective in fighting dirty money flows.

There are particular weaknesses in AML supervision of real estate agents and notaries, however, said FATF, noting the property sector is “exposed to significant ML risks”.…

The costs of investigating fraud have increased over the past three years, according to 79% of respondents to a global survey, with 26% overall and 49% of companies with a turnover of more than USD15 billion seeing this increase as significant, said risk assessment specialists Kroll.…

Sri Lanka’s clothing export sector is facing economic and political chaos in its island country as its President Gotabaya Rajapaksa imposed a state of emergency on Friday (April 6) amidst spiralling protests and foreign currency reserves collapsing to below USD50 million.…

Switzerland-based multinational mining and energy group Glencore will pay almost USD1.2 billion in fines and penalties to the US, UK and Brazil for corrupt and dishonest trading, including bribing African officials and illicitly manipulating oil market prices.

With prosecutorial investigations continuing in the Netherlands and Switzerland, Glencore said yesterday (Tuesday 24/5) that it would set aside USD1.5 billion to settle all cases relating to this malpractice.…

With financial fraud booming, the market for forensic accounting – uncovering financial crime through the study of accounting data, bank records and associated company data – is also growing fast.

A report from US and UK-based Market Research Future (MRFR) issued last October (2021) predicted that the global forensic accounting market would be worth annual receipts of USD8.85 billion by 2025, growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 8.2%.…

The European Parliament has approved giving Europol more powers, backing a European Union (EU) regulation that would authorise the police agency to pursue its own research and innovation projects, process large datasets for intelligence, and help national authorities screen foreign direct investment in security-related cases.…