A potpourri of bribery, Canada, Russian organized crime, Russian Oligarchs and money laundering

Tweet How organized crime used to work in Russia This is not a story but a potpourri of interesting events involving bribery, extortion, attempted murder, banking, Russian organized crime, Oligarchs and Canada.  We start with Russian Oligarch Vladimir Ivanovich Yakunin (Владимир Иванович Якунин), a high level politically exposed person.  Yakunin was a former KGB agent and Soviet […]

Iranian president alleges nothing being done in Iran to investigate corruption by politically exposed govt officials

Tweet The president of Iran, Hassan Rouhani, delivered a speech over the weekend in Iran alleging massive corruption by senior government officials, and claimed that over $700 million is gone that was under the control of the Minister of Petroleum, Bijan Namdar Zangeneh, and a further $2 billion is unaccounted for in foreign countries in […]

First of its kind PEP lawsuit? Lebanese lawyer sues Minister of Foreign Affairs for money laundering and taking state assets

Tweet A Lebanese lawyer, Maitre Marwan Salam, has sued the Lebanese Minister of Foreign Affairs, Gébran Bassil, for corruption, money laundering and enrichment from state assets. Massive protests have been taking place in Lebanon for several weeks over political corruption. Last month, the New York Times reported that the Lebanese prime minister, Saad Hariri, had […]

Brazil arrests 2 bank employees for AML compliance failures that allowed $249 million to be laundered

Tweet Two bank employees arrested over AML failures Brazil’s chief prosecutor, Eduardo El Hage, who is in charge of Operation Car Wash, obtained an order from Brazil’s federal court for the arrest of two bank employees with Banco Bradesco SA this week, arguing that they were lax on applying anti-money laundering law. Their alleged AML […]

Study in China identifies areas in China where most money launderers originate and finds that the number of suspicious activity reports filed does not improve effectiveness

Tweet According to money laundering law empirical research from China, a person from Fujian (the well-known Triad land) is most likely to be a money launderer, and the study also found that the filing of voluminous numbers of suspicious activity reports (SAR), does not lead to improved anti-money laundering results across any sector or in […]

The publication of secretly taped political corruption video of Austrian vice chancellor violates the law and may be criminal, says German data privacy chief

Tweet Privacy violation vs public interest One of Germany’s heads of data protection and privacy agencies says the publication by newspapers of the secretly-filmed video of Austrian politician Heinz-Christian Strache discussing potential bribes for contracts while on vacation, violates privacy law and may be criminal, as well as harmful to political culture.  The video, filmed […]

Pope takes on the Mafia and international corruption

Tweet The Vatican’s justice branch has released its statement emanating from its recent anti-Mafia meeting with global law enforcement agencies to take-down the Mafia around the world through excommunication, if necessary. The Pope believes that he can make a difference in eradicating the Mafia and transactional criminal organizations through the reach of the Catholic Church. The […]

Pope engages resources of Vatican to go after Mafia, corruption and money laundering

Tweet The Vatican is getting into the anti-money laundering enforcement business it seems,  to save humanity and in particular, intends to go after the mafia, using the threat of excommunication to get their attention. The Vatican convened an anti-corruption conference with, inter alia, Scotland Yard, lawyers, Italy’s national Mafia prosecutor Franco Roberti, Rome’s Mafia prosecutor […]

Nigeria gets ex parte asset recovery order for $153,000,000 in proceeds of corruption from PEP parked in banks

Tweet The government of Nigeria will be able to recover $153 million in proceeds of corruption from Diezani Allison-Madueke, its former Minister of Petroleum, who was and remains a politically exposed person under anti-money laundering law. The funds were alleged to have been stolen from the Nigerian National Oil Company when it was under her control […]

Trial of PEP from Equatorial Guinea for money laundering in France

Tweet Equatorial Guinea trial Teodorin Obiang, the son of the President of Equatorial Guinea, is being prosecuted in France for allegedly laundering the proceeds of corruption in France. Mr. Obiang is also the Vice-President of Equatorial Guinea and is a politically exposed person. His trial is scheduled for June 2017. He is accused of bringing […]