The coin prince: inside Bitcoin’s first big money-laundering scandal
What last week’s arrest of Charlie Shrem means for the virtual currency A week ago, 24-year-old Charlie Shrem landed at JFK, home from giving a talk about the virtual currency Bitcoin at an e-commerce convention in Amsterdam. The trip had gone well. Shrem’s speech made the front page of the Dutch Financial Times, his Icelandair flight had internet, and he was excited to be reunited with his girlfriend, Courtney. He did not expect to be arrested when he got off the plane. But as soon as he saw the agents from the Drug Enforcement Administration and IRS waiting for him at the gate, he knew. Whatever the trouble was, it must have something to do with Bitcoin. [Read More…]Amendments To Anti-Money Laundering Regulations And Updated Guidelines [Updated]
On February 14, 2013, we discussed the publication of amendments to the Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Regulations (the “Regulations“). Those amendments to the Regulations came into force on February 1, 2014. The Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada has updated Guideline 4 (Implementation of a Compliance Regime) and Guideline 6 (Record Keeping and Client Identification) in order to address the new requirements that came into force on February 1, 2014. The updated Guidelines can be found at the following link [Read More…]Brown Brothers to pay $8 million fine for money laundering violations
Brown Brothers Harriman has agreed to pay a record $8 million civil fine for “substantial” violations involving its program to detect and prevent money laundering, Wall Street’s industry- funded watchdog said on Wednesday. The New York-based investment firm did not have an adequate program in place to look for and detect suspicious penny stock transactions, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) said in a statement. The firm also did not sufficiently investigate potentially suspicious activity involving penny stocks after becoming aware of a possible problem, nor did it file mandatory reports to alert regulators, FINRA said. [Read More…]Better Money Laundering
Nobody likes throwing money away—especially central banks. But around the world, nearly 150,000 tons of bank notes are declared unfit for circulation each year, mostly because of soiling. Disposing of the stuff is an environmental headache, and replacing it with new bills costs nearly $10 billion annually—a figure likely to rise as currency grows more complex to defeat counterfeiters. [Read More…]The Potemkin Village of Anti-Money Laundering
Anti-money laundering efforts by the International Monetary Fund and the Financial Action Task Force have built a “Potemkin village” and a “paper reality” based on “a plausible folk theory” rather than data and evidence of what works, co-authors of a new, independent report said in interviews with Risk & Compliance Journal. The report had the cooperation of IMF and FATF officials and examined the third round of country assessments for anti-money laundering, conducted in the 2003-2012 period. “We find that the current system is pervasive and highly intrusive but without any evidence as to tangible effect,” said Terence C. Halliday, co-director of the Center on Law and Globalization, a partnership of the American Bar Foundation and the University of Illinois College of Law, and sponsor of the report. [Read More…]Industry News
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