Narco jets – how next to no security and oversight at private jet terminals, fuels use of private jets to move US$1 billion worth of drugs and money for drug cartels

Tweet Jetting money around for cartels According to a seasoned former agent with HSI, who gave an interview to the Courier Journal, private jets are being used to move drugs and bulk proceeds of crime in cash for the Sinaloa cartel in Mexico, without much in the way of processes to give law enforcement visibility. […]

FinCEN assesses US$60 million penalty against owner of Bitcoin mixer / tumbler service

Tweet US$60 million penalty On October 19, 2020, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (“FinCEN“) assessed a US$60 million penalty (here) against Larry Dean Harmon, the owner of two Bitcoin mixing and anonymizing services called Helix and Coin Ninja LLC. FinCEN found that the two entities were operating as unregistered money services businesses (“MSB“) which exchanged […]

A gruesome murder for $70

Tweet It was 1998. Wesley Ira Purkey was an ex-con recently out on parole and living in Lansing, Kansas. He had a lengthy criminal record for numerous violent crimes and had spent years in prison getting an education, and trying to improve his attitude for release. Over the years, prison psychologists who evaluated Purkey labeled […]

SEC files injunction against digital currency executives who allegedly obtained investments on the basis of false representations

Tweet The US Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC“) filed a complaint in Texas on March 16, 2020, against Robert Dunlap, Nicole Bowdler, the girlfriend of Dunlap, and a former Washington State Senator, David Schmidt, in connection with a digital currency they launched called Meta 1 coin (the “MetaCoin“) which raised US$4 million from the […]

US releases national strategy for anti-money laundering threats to US financial system

Tweet The US Department of the Treasury has released a “2020 National Strategy for Combating Terrorist and Other Illicit Financing“, which provides a roadmap to identify current money laundering and terrorist financing threats and provides strategies to mitigate the identified threats and risks. In the Strategy, some of the key money laundering risks are identified […]

Dominican Republic alleged drug kingpin Caesar Peralta and his close ties to federal government officials

Tweet On August 20, the US Office of Foreign Assets Control (“OFAC“) designated Caesar Emilio Peralta, a national from the Dominican Republic and the criminal organization he is said to control, as significant narcotics traffickers and a drug kingpin under the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act. Alleged money launderer and trafficker Peralta is known as […]

NCIS discovers jail pay FinTech app used by prisoners to launder money

Tweet Agents from NCIS have charged several prisoners, who used social media and online dating sites, with extortion and money laundering for blackmailing members of the military for money. The scheme cost 442 service members from the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps from across the United States more than $560,000 in financial losses. […]

ICOs & tokens increasingly attracting FBI criminal attention

Tweet According to this interview with FBI’s Financial Crimes Section Chief on CNBC, the FBI is seeing an increase in the number of complaints and cases opened involving digital currencies and crime. In particular, the FBI said that it is mostly ICOs and associated investment fraud schemes involving Bitcoin that are on the raise for […]

Canadian who was the 3rd largest fentanyl dealer, indicted in the US

Tweet Operation Darkness Falls nets Canadian fentanyl dealer The US DoJ, Department of Homeland Security, the FBI, the US Postal Service and DEA announced several arrests in Operation Darkness Falls, an international operation that sought to ferret out the identities of people selling illegal drugs, especially fentanyl, on the darknet that accepted Bitcoin and other digital […]