The International Monetary Fund (IMF) completed a guidance note on 25 June 2026, released the following month, instructing its staff on how to build financial crime into surveillance, financial sector assessments and lending decisions. Seven weeks later, on 11 August, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) published a final rule removing the obligation on US companies to report who owns them. Most of what had already been reported will be erased. The two documents

On 12 December 2025 a sitting justice of Brazil's Supreme Federal Court came off the Specially Designated Nationals list in a routine data release, with no press notice of the kind that had announced his designation. On 30 July 2025 the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) had designated Alexandre de Moraes under the Global Magnitsky programme, twelve days after the State Department revoked his US visa. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said he had run a campaign of censors

Count What Reached The Filter Most screening management information can tell you how many alerts were raised last month. That number describes what the filter did with the messages it received. It is the far end of the process. Ask a different set of questions about what happens at the beginning and things can get a little less clear. How many payment messages did the bank process that month? How many were in-scope for payment screening (probably not screening domestic but I

On 13 August 2026 the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) published a Financial Trend Analysis on human smuggling. It examines 67,540 Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) reports filed between 2023 and 2025, carrying more than $4.9 billion in suspicious activity, and its headline finding is a collapse. Filings peaked at 29,266 in 2024 before falling to 11,018 in 2025, a decline of 62 per cent, which the report sets beside US Customs and Border Protection figures showing crossings

Jessica Bowie, 35, of Albany, New York, appeared in federal court on 20 August 2026 charged with attempting to provide material support to a designated foreign terrorist organisation, ISIS. According to the criminal complaint filed in the Northern District of New York, Bowie planned to detonate an explosive device at the New York State Capitol, targeting state senators while they were sitting, before travelling to ISIS-controlled territory in Syria. She was arrested on 19 Aug

The United States Department of Justice (DOJ) has unsealed a nine-count indictment against four alleged members of a Bronx-based criminal enterprise known as the "War Room", charging racketeering, violence in aid of racketeering, firearms, fraud, narcotics and money laundering offences in connection with more than $12 million in fraudulent Medicaid claims. Louis Trejo, Kenneth Garner, Harold Stevenson and Erihk Belis are accused of fabricating patient transport data between 2

The United States Department of Justice (DOJ) has unsealed a 14-count superseding indictment charging 17 members of the Mabna Institute, an Iran-based company alleged to have run a decade-long campaign of computer intrusions on behalf of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and other Iranian government and university clients. Nine of the defendants were named in an earlier 2018 indictment; eight are newly charged. The case sits before the US District Court for the Sou

Jianfei Lu, a 31-year-old Chinese national, was sentenced on 18 August 2026 in the Western District of North Carolina to 15 years' imprisonment and ordered to forfeit $25 million for his role in a Chinese money laundering organisation (CMLO) that moved more than $92 million in criminal proceeds in under two years, much of it derived from narcotics importation routed through Mexico. The mechanics matter more than the headline figure. Lu operated first as a courier, collecting

New rules that took effect in the United Kingdom on 28 April 2026 require banks to give a customer at least 90 days' notice before closing their account, and to set out the reasons in writing. Yet the reform, meant to answer years of anger over debanking, carries an exception that reaches to the heart of the matter: a provider need give neither notice nor explanation where it has reasonable grounds to suspect the account is connected to serious crime. That judgement, whether

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has appointed Sabina Saini and Darine Obeid as financial services attachés for India and the UAE respectively, extending an overseas network that already covers Washington DC, Brussels, Singapore and the wider Asia-Pacific. Saini took up her post at the British Deputy High Commission in Mumbai on 10 August 2026; Obeid joins the British Embassy in Abu Dhabi on 31 August 2026. The FCA has framed both postings around policy influence and inw

A Colombian national has pleaded guilty in the US to a seven-year money laundering conspiracy that converted narcotics proceeds into consumer electronics destined for Colombia, in a case that maps directly onto a typology UK institutions continue to detect poorly. Andrelio Castaño Rojas, 55, admitted conspiring to launder drug trafficking proceeds through a currency exchange scheme between January 2018 and March 2025. He opened US bank accounts for two of his US companies and

On 10 August 2026, the US Department of the Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) convened law enforcement agencies and financial institutions in San Francisco for an information-sharing engagement on cartel activity. The session was led by Gene Lange, performing the duties of the Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, alongside FinCEN Deputy Director Jimmy Kirby, and covered case studies, typologies and suspicious activity associated wit