Thoughts on Mercenaries and Private Military Contractors

Tweet They have been called many things – mercenaries, irregular forces, private military contractors (PMC), and private security companies (PSC) – whatever the phrase, PMCs have been around for a very long time.  The war in Ukraine recently brought the use of private soldiers into focus – Russia has hired at least three such groups, […]

BVI Premier arrested for conspiracy to import cocaine for Mexican cartel

Tweet The Premier of the British Virgin Islands, Andrew Alturo Fahie, and BVI port authority head Oleanvine Maynard (“Maynard“), were arrested on drug trafficking and money laundering charges in Miami yesterday, shortly after looking at $700,000 in cash in a private jet that was earmarked for them. The cash, they were told, was a payment […]

Nigeria obtains asset seizure in Canada of fancy US$57 million Bombardier jet said to be owed by PEP and well-known convicted money launderer

Tweet The government of Nigeria obtained an asset seizure order in a Quebec Court to restrain a jet made by Bombardier, a Canadian airplane manufacturer that makes luxury jets for the elite of the world. The application in furtherance of the asset seizure was for a politically exposed person (“PEP“) from Nigeria, a former government […]

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 […]

Iran says its money laundering problem is in the billions of dollars

Tweet The Foreign Minister of Iran, Mohammad Javad Zarif, today said that Iran’s money laundering problem was in the billions of dollars, and he implied that federal government agencies in Iran benefited from money laundering in Iran and were lobbying to ensure that the FATF’s recommendations were not adopted into Iranian law. Although Zarif did […]

Growing protests over corruption in global hot spots means increased risks of the movement of proceeds of corruption from PEPs to the West

Tweet 2019 seems to have been a record year for mass protests by citizens marching against national corruption – at least 10 countries have had massive protests in the last few months, many of which are ongoing. Corruption at the national level is perpetrated by politically exposed persons (“PEPs“) who have access to the country’s […]

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 […]