Financial Crime Online

The United Nations (UN) has said political corruption costs governments about $1.6tn (yes: $ 1.600.000 million) worldwide every year. The money is lost in public assets moved across borders via money-laundering or undeclared holdings. The figure comes as the UN, World Bank and other watchdog meet in Doha, Qatar, to try to give a four-year-old [...]

Assess, Target, Link, Analyze and Share; that is what DHS led Operation ATLAS is all about. Not to be confused with the NPYD ‘ATLAS’ terrorist drills/program. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Janet Napolitano and World Customs Organization (WCO) Secretary General Kunio Mikuriya  announced the preliminary results of Operation ATLAS-the largest multilateral operation in history [...]

Regulators in Britain fined UBS £8 million ($13.3 million) on Thursday after finding that four employees at the bank’s international wealth-management unit in London had carried out unauthorized trading on at least 39 accounts. The (now former) dealers at UBS  plundered customer accounts to trade and dumped the resulting losses on them, Britain’s financial regulator [...]

Quebec police continued their crackdown on corruption in the province’s construction industry yesterday, arresting 10 people allegedly tied to what authorities say is a vast money-laundering operation headed by the Hells Angels biker gang.  The plan, police say, was to create a consortium of masonry companies as part of a conspiracy to corner the market [...]

A legislative aide to an Essex County assemblywoman, Yankey, was arrested last week after police found $700,000 in cash and filed-down handguns in a storage unit in North Bergen, NY. A storage locker’s contract had expired, and after numerous written requests for the individual to vacate the storage unit or pay the bill, management cut [...]

Sometimes the price of corruption is quite transparent. At least for the businessmen who are being ‘forced’ to pay the bribes. Forbes ran an interesting article on corruption issues related to a (privately owned) coal mine in China. The owner estimated the corruption costs at 20% of his total operating costs. “..The inspection teams who [...]

McAllen Hospitals L.P., d/b/a/ South Texas Health System agreed to pay $27,5 million to settle claims of illegal compensation to doctors in order to induce them to refer patients to hospitals within the group. More patients, more profits for the Group. Who cares what would be the best care provider for the patient? As more [...]