The Institute AML & Financial Crime Digest #105

Things are getting pretty exciting here at The Institute and over the next few weeks we're looking forward to presenting a whole new way of looking at our work and activities, building on our great history and transforming our offering to Members and the broader community.

Even so, after a brief hiatus as we focussed on the bigger project, the AML and Financial Crime Digest is back - and it's a bumper issue.

Featured

• Courage, cake, and a half-eaten hashbrown: what does this have to do with turtles? - Meagan Birch, Ray Blake, Dr. Ruth Wandhöfer, Mario Menz, PhD, and Dawn Fisher FICA, Dip AML, Dip FCP reveal some new approaches to try in the fight against financial crime.
• Politically-Exposed Persons And "De-Banking" - Tom Burroughes
• The firm at the centre of UK Government legal action to recover £122m, after it won contracts through the so-called ‘VIP lane’ of suppliers, has posted assets of just over £4m
• RUSI: Institutional Proliferation Finance Risk Assessment Guide - Noémi També, PhD
• Former Senior Police Officer Gets Serious Fraud Office Top Job
• The three key characteristics to detect money launderers in the financial sector - Grant MacDonald
• British banks are gearing up to share more data with their peers on suspected serious economic crime
• Nicola Sharp considers the statistics released by HM Revenue & Customs about the money laundering fines it has issued.
• Reform of the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Supervisory Regime Consultation
• HMRC sends 'one to many' letters to those named in the Pandora Papers haul - Helen McGhee
• A survey conducted by the Environmental Agency has found that nearly a fifth of all waste is “illegally managed”
• Long Read: How a Frenchman Stole Two Billion Dollars’ Worth of Art
• Finally, the sentencing of major FIFA defendant Jeffrey Webb approaches, after eight years of delays and preferential treatment.
• Private Investigation Sector Never Busier As Risks Proliferate
• The Whistleblower Industrial Complex
• UK Investigations And Financial Crime: Horizon Scanning - Andrew Reeves, David Harris, Stuart Neely, Annie Birch and Claudia Van Gruisen (née Culley)
• Using mindfulness to strengthen due diligence and mental well-being - Mario Menz, PhD
• The US Department of Justice now has a corporate crime page that includes links to voluntary self disclosure and monitoring policies, guidance and speeches and a corporate crime database

Comment & Opinion

• The New Corporate Offense Of Failing To Prevent Fraud: A Game Changer, Or Only Part Of The Answer? - Jamie Bartlett
• What's the best method to teach compliance officers money laundering techniques? - Kenneth Rijock
• Major Corporate Defense Law Firms Are Representing Whistleblowers - Stephen M. Kohn
• Global Action To Enhance Cross-Border Payments − Speech By Victoria Cleland, Bank Of England Executive Director For Banking, Payments And Innovation
• Setting aside a Judgment Obtained by Fraud - Nicola Sharp
• FarageGate shows the ‘Trusted KYC Data Sharing’ project must be stopped - Bob Lyddon

Regulation & Compliance

• Over two-thirds of regulated firms in the emerging financial sectors are concerned about committing an anti-money laundering (AML) breach
• Tanveer Bhatti, Policy Analyst at the Bank of England, explains the role that the Legal Entity Identifier (LEI) is playing in promoting trust and transparency across the UK’s financial sectorHere's how the proposed UK Data Protection and Digital Information Bill could affect the operations of businesses - Daniel GallagherComplacency on compliance is a costly mistake for regulated firms, warns Martin Cheek
• How many family offices are investing the laundered proceeds of crime? - Kenneth Rijock
• UK chancellor Jeremy Hunt says he was refused a bank account by Monzo when he was a backbencher last year

FinTech & RegTech

• How real-time data has transformed finance - Chirag Shah
• Mitigating Money Laundering Risks in the Rapidly Expanding Payment Space - Claus Christensen
• How financial services can fortify digital banking with identity security - Steve Bradford
• Meet Google’s New Anti-Money-Laundering AI Tool for Banks
• Video - Illuminating international trade: The role of FATF and AML/KYC in combating financial crimes

AI & Machine Learning

• How can AI Thwart Financial Fraud Associated With Real-Time Payments? - Christina Emmanouilidou
• When it comes to money laundering in an increasingly digitalized world, we may increasingly see technology facing up against – well - other technology. At least that seems to be one of the many takes from a wide-ranging fraud 2023 fraud and financial crime report by Kroll
• In an open letter to policymakers, over 150 European companies have stated that the proposed EU AI Act "would jeopardise Europe’s competitiveness"
• How generative AI regulation is shaping up around the world - Aaron Hurst

Cryptocurrency & Digital Assets

• The Bank of England has enlisted payments platform Nuggets to work on a privacy and identity layer for any future digital pound
• The Law Commission of England and Wales is gearing up to make the country a world leader in crypto regulations by providing a regulatory framework
• Could asset tokenisation be the new settlement solution?
• Binance Withdraws Permissions Granted by Regulator
• UK crypto seizure law moves closer after Lords passage

Gaming and Gambling

• Australia’s first national self-exclusion register for online gambling will launch next month

Estate Agents & Property

• Land Registry aims to link electronic signatures with digital identities
• Estate agents have been warned to ensure they are properly clued up on anti-money laundering (AML) - as data reveals Google searches on the issue has fallen - Credas

Corruption

• The Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project - The Cleaner and the Laundromat: Belarusian Cleaning Magnate Allegedly Laundered Millions Through Disgraced Latvian Bank ABLV
• Podcast: Nils Köbis and Christopher Starke, interview Magnus Ohman, senior political finance adviser at the International Foundation for Electoral Systems, about challenges associated with the problem of illicit political financePodcast: Liz David-Barrett interviews John Githongo, the legendary Kenyan anticorruption activist - John Githongo

Frauds & Scams

• Banks Want Fraud Prevention Taught in Schools As Britain becomes a Passwordless Society - Mike Normansell (MCIPR)
• The Financial Ombudsman Service received 21,918 fraud and scam complaints in the 2022/23 financial year
• The The Payments Association has written to the UK government warning of the “unintended consequences” of new policies designed to reduce Authorised Push Payments (APP) fraud
• The Fraud Landscape in 2023 - Traci Krepper
• Insurance fraud – how tempted are you?

Cybercrime

• A gang of pro-Russian hactivists have claimed credit for a series of attacks on the IT systems of banks and financial institutions across Europe.
• A prolific cyber crime gang thought to be based in Russia issued an ultimatum to victims of a hack that hit organisations around the world. The Clop group posted a notice on the dark web warning firms affected by the MOVEit hack to email them before 14 June or stolen data would be published. What action can those caught up in mass hacks take?
• To pay or not to pay? Ransomware attacks are the new kidnapping - Jamie MacColl and Tom Keatinge

Organised Crime

• How firms can combat the rising cases of supply chain crime
• Europol: Large-scale law enforcement operation clamps down on poly-criminal network abusing public offices in CalabriaEuropol: The dismantling of the encrypted communications tool EncroChat, widely used by organised crime groups has so far led to 6558 arrests worldwide.
•  How Heroin Trafficking Actually Works: David McMillan is a British Australian former drug smuggler. He was arrested several times between the early '80s and 2012 for trafficking heroin through Southeast and Central Asia
• Artfully hidden in Switzerland for decades, assets of Holocaust victims surface in the hands of heirs of Hungarian Nazis who seek to redeem them - Kenneth Rijock

Terrorism

• European Union Terrorism Situation and Trend report 2023 (PDF)
• German police swoop on 'Islamic State' finance network

Research

• It is best to say nothing at all – suspicious activity reporting in the financial services sector - Mario Menz, PhD
• The implications of national blockchain infrastructure for financial crime - Marcus Smith et al
• “Everyone freaks out when the leaks are made”: data leaks, investigative journalism and intelligence practice - Ben Scott
• The red flags of financial statement fraud: a case study - Elda du Toit

The Institute Committee

Tracey Iles | Darren Woodburn | Meagan Birch | Dean Evans | Mario Menz, PhD | Iain Armstrong | Jacob Bettany

The Institute of Money Laundering Prevention Officers is supported by:

Guidehouse | Beyond | Lucinity | Complyport | Efficient Frontiers International

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