Financial Crime Online

It is one of a bank’s worst nightmare. And it probably is one of yours. Imagine someone that can access your personal financial data to steal it and abuse it. Banks do (almost?) everything they can to prevent unauthorized access to your data but bank staff themselves obviously need to have access to your data [...]

An certified public accountant, Mrs. Cecile Nhung Campbell, working at KIA motors was sentenced to 76 months of jail time last Friday after she pleaded guilty federal charges of grand theft, money laundering and filing false tax returns, according to a statement from the Orange County (CA) district attorneys office. Mrs. Nhung Campbell worked for [...]

Last Thursday UNODC launched the report “The Globalization of Crime: A Transnational Organized Crime Threat Assessment“. It shows how organized crime has globalized and turned into one of the world’s foremost economic and armed powers. “..Among the findings in the new report, which features a number of high-impact maps and charts that illustrate illicit flows [...]

A new U.S.-Mexico government study estimates that $19 billion to $29 billion is shipped south, then laundered through cash purchases of land, luxury hotels, cars and other high-end items. Remember the recent arrest of Cancun mayor for aiding criminal groups setting up shop in Cancun? The amount of money involved shows the (financial) power of [...]

A former employee of Pamrapo Savings Bank was arrested by IRS agents on June 2 and charged with diverting and embezzling more than $600,000 from the  New Jersey-based bank. According the the details published in the public domain to date, the scheme was quite simple. In a complex banking environment, he asked business partners to [...]

Reuters reports that the mayor of the Mexican beach resort of Cancun has been arrested and charged with money laundering and drug-related crimes, making him one of the highest-ranking public officials swept up in Mexico’s crackdown on narcotics traffickers. “He was moving so much money and it just didn’t match up with the amount he [...]

A decade after its introduction, the 500 euro bill has taken a leading role in the world of dirty money. An internal Bank of Italy report warned last year about the mafia’s use of the note, saying it was just adding to the national problems of tax evasion. It is globally the money launderers favorite [...]

Swiss banks are no longer what they used to be. The ‘secrecy veil’ has been lifted to a large extent. Money launderers found ‘safer’ havens for their dirty money. This week it was announced that a Swiss banker, the former CEO of Tempus PrivatBank, is indicted for corruption and money laundering after a 7 (!) [...]

Wells Fargo & Co’s Wachovia Bank agreed to cough up $160 million to end a criminal money laundering probe into the use of its exhange houses in Mexico by drug cartels. The government agreed to defer prosecution on a criminal charge that Wachovia did not set up an effective anti-money laundering program from 2003 to 2008. [...]

Usually hawaladers come from the East. This time he came from the South. The owner of Bem Brazil in Danbury (CT) was sentenced to 30 months in prison for unlicensed money transfers. The indictment alleged that, in exchange for remitting more than $22,000,000 from Connecticut to Brazil and for guaranteeing the anonymity of both their [...]