Financial Crime Online

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 [...]

Rosemont Finance Corp is a Miami based Money Services Business (MSB) that acts as a clearing house for casa de cambios in Venezuela. Rosemont controls a bank account with Bank of America widely used for unofficial foreign exchange transactions; US dollar versus Venezuelan bolivars. Rosemont’s account was frozen by US authorities after is was linked [...]