Threats and intimidation The story of how two reporters in London investigating the FinTech Wirecard were pursued by a government regulator in Germany, which commenced a bogus criminal investigation against them, and how those reporters were followed and intimidated by Wirecard and its lawyers, is reminiscent of what can happen to anti-money laundering (“AML“) compliance […]
Cruel and unusual punishment Everything I know about the Eighth Amendment and death penalty jurisprudence, I learned from former US Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, from whom I had the privilege of studying law during a course on international human rights and constitutional law. US Supreme Court Justice Kennedy, as he was then, was not […]
Mexico’s financial intelligence unit, working with the DEA, yesterday announced that it had frozen the bank accounts of 1,770 men and women and 167 companies believed to be tied to, or working for, the Cártel Jalisco Nueva Generación (“CJNG“), believed to have been used to launder approximately US$1.1 billion in proceeds of crime from the […]
The proceeds of crime from a massive US$550 million Ponzi scheme perpetrated by two convicted fraudsters in the US – Kevin Merrill and Jay Ledford – are being auctioned at an online auction house starting next week, in part because of Covid-19. Diamonds, sports memorabilia, art, gold coins, comic book from securities fraud being sold […]
Almost three years after the German Army invaded Poland, the Nazis started to implement the final solution in Poland, and in 1942, established the first of many extermination camps in which millions of Jews would perish. One of those camps was Bełżec. In the midst of those 1942 mass deportations of Polish Jews to extermination camps, […]
Indictment for mixing service On February 13, 2020, the US government unsealed an indictment against Larry Dean Harmon, the alleged founder of a Bitcoin mixing Bitcoin service, and of a darknet search engine that hooked up with the now-defunct illegal Canadian darknet site called AlphaBay. The mixing service was called Helix and the darknet search […]
A UK man, Paul Johnson, was sentenced to eight years in jail in the UK for operating a darknet drug trafficking business from the attic of his home. In order to obfuscate what he was doing, he set up a company called “Labrador Tea Company” and used it to buy illegal drugs from Canadians in […]
Revocation of Bank Licence The Meinl Bank filed for insolvency at the Vienna commercial court after money laundering allegations. The Bank lost its banking licence from the European Central Bank after a review of its AML compliance found a massive lack of compliance amid allegations that from 2011 to 2015, the Bank was used as […]
Canada still on the Majors List Canada made it on the “Majors List” in the annual US State Department’s International Narcotics Control Strategy Report (“INCSR“) again this year. The Majors List is three lists and it designates countries that are (1) “Major Illicit Drug Producing and Drug Transit Countries”; (2) “Major Precursor Chemical Source Countries”; […]
A Canadian charged with money laundering, Enzo Vettesse, was extradited to New York last week and a 2013 sealed indictment against him, was unsealed. On March 18, 2013, Montrealer Vettesse was caught in New York transporting a suitcase filled with US$245,000 in cash and confessed to US law enforcement that he was traveling with the […]