OFAC releases framework for sanctions compliance

Tweet The Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) published a framework for sanctions compliance yesterday which describes the sanctions compliance program standards for US legal and natural persons and for US-origin goods or services. The framework mirrors the requirements for a competence AML program and includes: commitment from the top down […]

Bitcoin for terrorist financing linked to an exchange

Tweet For years now, people in the digital currency space have expressed concern about digital currency exchanges and digital currencies being abused for terrorist financing. Another report, this time from researchers at BellingCat, have apparently traced the use of a digital currency exchange directly to a terrorist group. Terrorist financing is not only prohibited and […]

$15 million in heroin seized from Iranian truckers entering Bulgaria

Tweet The Bulgarian police have seized a transport truck from Iran attempting to cross the Bulgarian – Turkey border with 288 kilos of pure heroin, with a street value of $15 million at the low end. The heroin was dry-walled, meaning each brick of heroin was covered individually with drywalling material. According to the US […]

Iran confirms supporting an ICO and several Blockchain projects

Tweet On Tuesday, Iranian officials spoke to the Iranian media and confirmed that a government organization – Iran Telecommunication Research Center – has four Blockchain projects in progress that have looked at using Blockchain for policy making, threat management and business use cases for Iran. Further, they announced that a project at Sharif University, funded […]

Iranian charged in $6 billion case with disrupting Iran’s economy by moving money for sanctions avoidance, immigrated to Canada

Tweet Updated 2019-04-14 Another Iranian in Canada alleged to owe millions to Iran Marjan Sheikholeslami, an Iranian foreign national, now living in Toronto, Canada, is alleged to have played a major part of a financial crime case with an Iranian petroleum executive, Reza Hamzehlou, and is on trial in absentia in Iran for disrupting Iran’s […]

Vancouver, Venezuela, Crypto

Tweet According to this article in Vancouver, a Vancouver based charity called GiveCrypto.org, is sending, transferring or donating (perhaps all 3), digital currencies from the US (via Coinbase, a digital currency exchange) to people in Venezuela. The article does not say who receives the digital currencies in Venezuela, how they receive it or how much […]

Iran using ghost supertankers to avoid sanctions law

Tweet According to this article in the Financial Times, Iran has sent a supertanker, called Happiness I, en route to Asia, carrying 2 million barrels of oil that is off-the-radar literally, in order to obfuscate that it is transporting Iranian oil to another country. When ships are off-radar, they turn off their transponders and are […]