The phrase ‘voluntary self-disclosure’ (VSD) carries a reassuring implication: that a firm has chosen, freely and without compulsion, to report its own misconduct. The term suggests agency and integrity. Regulators in the US and the UK have built entire enforcement frameworks around this concept, offering penalty reductions, declinations and reputational credit to firms that come forward before they are found out. Yet across sanctions, export controls and anti-bribery enforce

Two former senior officials in the US Virgin Islands have been sentenced for their roles in a procurement fraud, bribery, and money laundering scheme involving federal pandemic relief funds. Ray Martinez, former Commissioner of the Virgin Islands Police Department (VIPD), was sentenced to 10 years in prison followed by three years of supervised release. Jenifer O'Neal, former Director of the Virgin Islands Office of Management and Budget (OMB), received a seven-year custodial

The guilty plea of Avtandil Kalandadze offers a useful case study in how dark fleet sanctions evasion converges with terrorist financing exposure, deceptive shipping practices and active obstruction of enforcement. Kalandadze, 47, a Georgian national and former master of the tanker Bella 1, has pleaded guilty in the US District Court for the District of Columbia to failing to heave to a US Coast Guard cutter. The plea follows a multi-week pursuit from the Caribbean Sea across

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has decided to fine Carlos Ricardo Fuenmayor, Chief Executive of BancTrust, £99,600 for failing to disclose three separate matters that bear directly on his fitness and propriety. The provisional findings are notable for what they reveal about the gaps a determined non-disclosure can open in a regulator's view of an approved person. Until December 2021, Mr Fuenmayor did not tell the FCA — including in application forms submitted on behalf

A Texas couple who defrauded more than 10,000 people of over $30m through a fraudulent chain-referral pyramid scheme have each been sentenced to 40 years in prison, following their conviction on conspiracy, wire fraud, and money laundering charges in January 2026. LaShonda Moore, 38, and Marlon Moore, 39, of Frisco, Texas, co-founded and operated "Blessings in No Time" (BINT), which they marketed through weekly live-streamed broadcasts to thousands of participants across the

A federal grand jury in the District of Columbia has indicted Jaime "Jimmy" Sanchez Soriano, 45, a Mexican national accused of importing substantial quantities of methamphetamine into the United States and laundering the proceeds. Sanchez Soriano sourced methamphetamine from Los Viagras Cartel, a violent organisation affiliated with the United Cartels (Cárteles Unidos), before his arrest by Mexican authorities on 19 March. The United Cartels rank among the world's largest met

A California man has been sentenced to 27 months in prison for tax evasion, operating an illegal gambling business and money laundering, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) has announced. Jason Noah Feinman, of Calabasas, operated a Costa Rica-based business whose website enabled unlicensed and illegal gambling operators to facilitate betting activity. Customers placed wagers through sites Feinman maintained, in breach of both state and federal law. The case offers a textbook

When TD Bank pleaded guilty in October 2024 to violations of the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) and agreed to pay approximately US 3.09 billion in penalties to the United States Department of Justice and federal regulators, much of the post-mortem focused on culture. Commentators dwelt on the internal "flat cost paradigm" that capped the bank's anti-money laundering (AML) budget regardless of business growth, and on the conduct of individual employees. Less attention was paid to a qu

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has obtained a confiscation order of £452,286.80 against Daniel Pugh, who is serving seven years and six months for defrauding investors of £1.3m through a Ponzi scheme operated from his Devon home. Pugh, 36, used Facebook advertising to recruit investors, promising unrealistic returns supposedly generated by trading across multiple markets. In reality, only 19% of the funds collected were ever traded, with the remainder sustaining the ap

The US Department of the Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) has issued an advisory setting out typologies and red flag indicators for financial institutions to detect and report payroll tax fraud, identity theft and money laundering linked to unauthorised employment schemes. The advisory, issued jointly with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) and the National Credit Union Administration (

A Chinese national resident in Buford, Georgia has pleaded guilty to conspiring to launder millions of dollars in narcotics proceeds, in a case that illustrates the operational hallmarks of trade-based money laundering (TBML) tied to transnational criminal organisations. Puquan Huang, 50, admitted to participating in an international money laundering organisation that, since at least 2021, collected bulk cash from fentanyl and cocaine sales across South Carolina, North Caroli

The arrest of Jamshid Ghomi exposes a procurement and laundering architecture that should be familiar to anyone running sanctions controls, even as its scale and end-users mark it out. Ghomi, a dual US-Iranian national and chief executive of Tehran-based Faraz Pardaz Rayaneh Co Ltd (FPR), was detained on 3 June 2026 on a federal complaint alleging conspiracy to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA). The conduct described runs the full evasion playboo