Harry Cassin
Publisher and Editor
Andy Spalding
Senior Editor
Jessica Tillipman
Senior Editor
Bill Steinman
Senior Editor
Richard L. Cassin
Editor at Large
Elizabeth K. Spahn
Editor Emeritus
Cody Worthington
Contributing Editor
Julie DiMauro
Contributing Editor
Thomas Fox
Contributing Editor
Marc Alain Bohn
Contributing Editor
Bill Waite
Contributing Editor
Shruti J. Shah
Contributing Editor
Russell A. Stamets
Contributing Editor
Richard Bistrong
Contributing Editor
Eric Carlson
Contributing Editor
Just because a country has a law — or a company has a compliance system, for that matter — it doesn’t automatically mean it works or is put to work. And so it is with countries’ anti-money laundering and counter financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) systems, in which this year’s Basel AML Index has recorded a spectacular lack of progress.… Continue Reading
Once again, AML failures are shaking up the headlines. If the Danske Bank scandal wasn’t enough, at the beginning of March, the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project showed how a series of offshore shell companies were used to move billions of dollars of private wealth from Russia to the West.… Continue Reading
Last month Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro and Ministry of Justice Sérgio Moro published the Decree No. 9.663/2019, changing the status of the Financial Activities Control Council (COAF), the Brazilian AML Agency.… Continue Reading
The parent company of U.S. Bank agreed Thursday to pay criminal and civil penalties of $613 million to resolve charges that it willfully ran a defective anti-money laundering program and hid the defects from federal regulators.… Continue Reading
The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) Monday fined Merchants Bank of California $7 million for impeding compliance staff and threatening to fire staffers who wouldn’t process suspicious transactions.
The Carson-based bank allowed billions of dollars to flow through the U.S.… Continue Reading
The UK Financial Conduct Authority Wednesday sanctioned Sonali Bank (UK) Limited and its former compliance officer after years of serious anti-money laundering system failures.
The FCA fined Sonali UK £3.25 million (nearly $4 million) and banned it from accepting deposits from new customers for 24 weeks.… Continue Reading
The Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network issued new rules Wednesday to force U.S. title insurance companies to identify the natural persons behind companies used to pay all cash for high-end residential real estate in the Borough of Manhattan in New York City and in Miami-Dade County, Florida.… Continue Reading
The Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network announced its first enforcement action against a “card club” gaming business.
Oaks Card Club of Emeryville, California admitted last week that it violated the program and reporting requirements of the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA). … Continue Reading
The Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network said Tuesday that the owner of Caesars Palace casino in Las Vegas will pay an $8 million civil penalty for “willful and repeated violations” of the anti money-laundering provisions of the Bank Secrecy Act.… Continue Reading
This month, Transparency International published its survey of the UK’s AML enforcement and confiscation systems, particularly in relation to Financial Action Task Force (FATF) defined “grand corruption” (bribe-taking or kickbacks, extortion, self-dealing, conflicts of interest, and embezzlement from the national treasuries).… Continue Reading
Transaction monitoring — the use of contemporaneous compliance analytics to proactively and reactively identify suspicious business arrangements and payments — is the most important development in anti-corruption programs since third-party due diligence.… Continue Reading
CEO Hunt Burke (Image courtesy of Burke & Herbert Bank)Burke & Herbert Bank & Trust must develop a new top-to-bottom compliance program and hire people to run it under the terms of an order issued by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.… Continue Reading
