Ten banks in the Philippines are involved in a inquiry by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP). The reason for the inquiry is to assess the banks and their relations with Australia's Westpac. Westpac was recently fined for about 23 million breaches in anti-money laundering(AML) regulations. Many of these breaches…

Rifaat al-Assad, known as the "Butcher of Hama" and the uncle of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, has gone on trial for alleged money laundering. A politically exposed person(PEP), like Rifaat al-Assad, is normally considered to be an increased risk for financial crimes due to their status. Sherpa, a law association…

Ukraine's government has been busy with cryptocurrency. Not only have government sponsored grants been activated, but cryptocurrency AML regulations have been defined. The grants will be responsible for  government spending of over $18 million meant to support cryptocurrency and other innovative startups. Not only has Ukraine taken these steps to…

Hawaiian Gardens Casino, California's second-largest card room, has been fined almost $6 million by state and federal regulators. Casino AML regulations can be stringent, the law requires casinos to file suspicious activity and currency transaction reports consistently. However, these fines prove that it is a risky gamble for these casinos…

The International Institute of Finance (IIF) stated that one of the major factors hindering anti-money laundering for banks is a lack of information-sharing.  However, stringent data privacy regulations have been introduced which make it difficult for any organization to share information. The European Union's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) helps…

In 2017, Apple Inc. discovered that they had inadvertently paid a developer that was present on U.S. sanction lists. The sanctions and OFAC screening tool Apple used failed to identify the developer as a blacklisted entity. Apple reported this error and the investigation has been completed, with the result of…

From December 2010 to February 2014, three General Electric Company (GE) subsidiaries violated sanctions regulations on 289 occasions. These violations resulted in a $2.7 million civil penalty by the U.S. Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). OFAC sanction screening is required to be in place to prevent businesses…

The Australian anti-money laundering regulator (AUSTRAC) is imposing penalties on Westpac bank for know your customer in banking failure. AUSTRAC claims that Westpac failed to adequately monitor transactions that could potentially be linked to child exploitation in Asia.  Australia’s anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing act requires entities, like banks, to…

The "travel rule" requires that firms engaged in money service businesses to share information about their customers and verify identities of customers. First issued in 1996, the travel rule (a know-your-customer (KYC) regulation) was expanded by FinCEN to apply to cryptocurrency in May of this year. FATF released guidelines in…