Politically exposed Chinese foreign national pleads guilty to immigration fraud

Tweet Shilan Zhao (趙世蘭), the ex-wife of a Chinese official and a politically exposed person, has pleaded guilty to immigration fraud related to the EB5 investor visa program in the US and will serve a term of incarceration of five years. Zhao conspired with her husband, Jianjun Qiao (喬建軍), aka Feng Li, to immigrate to […]

US extends GTOs for tracking money laundering in real estate

Tweet The US Treasury has announced that it is extending its Geographical Targeting Orders to identify purchasers of luxury real estate properties in six areas in the US. The GTOs require title insurance companies to identify the natural persons behind shell companies used to pay all cash for high-end residential real estate. A Special Agent with […]

The law on privilege in the context of money laundering and financial crime

Tweet In Canada and the US, lawyers are not subject to anti-money laundering reporting obligations like they are in most other countries. One of the most frequent reasons given for this by lawyers is that to require us to report certain financial transactions to a financial intelligence unit is inconsistent with, and would undermine, legal […]

US expands review of money laundering in real estate market

Tweet More scrutiny in US for real estate The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) announced that it is expanding its program to identify persons who may be hiding assets in residential properties in the US. The expansion adds additional cities to what are called the area for Geographic Targeting Orders (GTO). Title insurance agents in GTO […]

The CIA on terrorism and tech

Tweet On June 16, 2016, the Director of the CIA testified before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence in respect of the Islamic State (ISIS), terrorism and technology generally. Here is an executive summary: The CIA said there there has never been a time when there is such a “dizzying” array of national security issues […]

FinTechs are being derisked out of bank accounts over terrorist financing and money laundering risks says UK study

Tweet The Financial Conduct Authority released an interesting soft study on the incidents of derisking affecting companies in the UK and pursuant to the study, MSB, charities and FinTechs are the three business client groups whose bank accounts are most frequently closed because they are too risky for the bank (a practice known as derisking). […]

Canada and the fake refugee passport issue

Tweet Fake refugees — A crisis within a crisis It seems to becoming clear that it is not reasonably possible to rely on the identity documents of any persons who claim Syrian or Iraqi refugee status from 2014 onwards, the time in which the Islamic State acquired the capacity to create authentic passports. Since at […]

Towards redefining financial inclusion

Tweet Financial inclusion continues to be an important part of the dialogue on anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing law, because the latter results in a greater number of people being de-risked out of financial services or denied banking services altogether. In this piece in American Banker, we explore the issues that arise with the way […]

Developer sued for taking proceeds of crime from foreign nationals

Tweet New York real estate developer being sued for $18 billion for accepting alleged proceeds of corruption from foreigners who were known PEPs According to an article yesterday in the Wall Street Journal, real estate developers in New York are being sued for accepting proceeds of corruption from politically exposed persons (PEP). The plaintiffs are […]

UN Chief charged in money laundering bribery scheme for allegedly accepting millions in cash from Chinese casino billionaire

Tweet Former UN President Charged The former United Nations (“UN”) President of the UN General Assembly, John Ashe, the UN Deputy Ambassador, Francis Lorenzo, a Chinese foreign national billionaire, Ng Lap Seng (also known as David Ng) and two of his associates were charged in New York with various offenses over an alleged bribery scheme. Two […]