Money laundering

The Treasury Department is expanding a whistleblower program, which currently deals only with anti-money-laundering violations, to include tips from employees of financial institutions that result in sanctions-related penalties.

U.S. Attorney Philip R. Sellinger said Oscar Marcelo Nunez-Flores, a New Jersey bank staffer of a bank unnamed in case documents, was arrested Wednesday after he allegedly took bribes to launder millions in drug money to Colombia.

As financial institutions increasingly rely on artificial intelligence for anti-money-laundering and fraud detection, they face challenges in meeting regulators' demands for complete transparency and documentation.

The Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network issued an alert Friday calling on financial institutions to closely monitor and report suspected financial activities related to Hamas, including complex cryptocurrency transactions and through fictitious charities.

The move to create data consortia and proprietary information networks is creating exactly the kind of information silos that money launderers exploit today.

Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network said most small businesses will need to report information about their beneficial owners at the start of next year; certain financial and government entities are exempt because of their preexisting regulatory requirements.

Bancrédito International Bank and Trust Corp. "willfully violated" the Bank Secrecy Act, according to the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network. The penalty was the first under a two-year-old federal rule aimed at closing gaps in anti-money-laundering enforcement.

The $100 million-asset bank ran afoul of various regulatory standards, including credit oversight, anti-money-laundering controls and third-party risk management.

Legislation before Congress would violate individuals' digital privacy by requiring digital wallet providers to intrusively gather and report highly personal information.

Switzerland on Wednesday proposed tougher AML rules as U.S. officials ramp up their critique of what they say is weak sanctions enforcement.

House Republicans' accusation that government agencies are being weaponized against political conservatives underlines a longstanding challenge for banks: Balancing customers' data privacy and stopping financial crime.

The subpoena is part of a growing Republican narrative that Democrats have weaponized the Federal Bureau of Investigation against conservatives.

Gacki, who has served since 2019 as director of Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control, will replace acting Fincen Director Himamauli Das. Her appointment comes as the Biden administration seeks to enforce sanctions against Russia and implement rules aimed at identifying undisclosed shell company owners.

The German bank's New York branch was entangled with U.S. regulators and law enforcement agencies for more than a decade in connection with money laundering and sanctions violations.

The Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network said it is looking into the feasibility of verifying entries in a forthcoming beneficial ownership database, but may be limited by legal and cost considerations.

Nexway, based in France, allegedly processed payments in its own name on behalf of a tech support scam and telemarketing company from 2016 to 2020.

Properly executed, the new anti-money-laundering program has the potential to cripple laundering networks by altering the landscape for financial services professionals.

The only way for Fincen to assure that banks have the tools to identify illicit shell companies is for the agency to verify the information in its new beneficial ownership database.

A judge said he would approve Deutsche Bank's $26.3 million settlement of a lawsuit that accused the bank of misleading investors about how thoroughly it vetted clients, including Jeffrey Epstein and Russian tycoons.