The US Department of Justice (DOJ) has secured a 15-year prison sentence against Mohammed Zohair Adi for money laundering conspiracy and providing false testimony, in a case centred on the laundering of proceeds from a large-scale marijuana trafficking organisation. The sentence, imposed in the Southern District of Alabama, also included a $50,000 fine and three years of supervised release. According to court documents, Adi helped launder millions of dollars linked to a netwo

Former Venezuelan Industry Minister Alex Saab has appeared in a federal court in Florida after US prosecutors unsealed an indictment accusing him of orchestrating a major international money laundering conspiracy tied to Venezuela’s CLAP food subsidy programme and illicit oil trading operations. The case marks one of the most significant US anti-corruption and sanctions-related prosecutions connected to the Maduro regime in recent years and underscores Washington’s continued

On 15 May 2026, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), the Bank of England (BoE) and His Majesty's Treasury (HMT) published a joint statement setting out their expectations for how regulated firms and financial market infrastructures (FMIs) should respond to the escalating cyber risks posed by frontier artificial intelligence (AI) models. The authorities warn that the cyber capabilities of current frontier AI models are already exceeding what a skilled practitioner could achi

The US Department of Justice (DOJ) has announced the arrest and charging of Mohammad Baqer Saad Dawood Al-Saadi, an Iraqi national and alleged senior member of Kata’ib Hizballah, in a major terrorism case linked to Iranian-backed networks. Al-Saadi, 32, is accused of acting as an operative for Kata’ib Hizballah and Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), both designated by the US as foreign terrorist organisations. Prosecutors allege he was involved in almost 20 atta

The United States Department of Justice (DOJ) has intensified its campaign against Mexican cartels after unsealing a superseding indictment against alleged Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion (CJNG) leader Audias Flores Silva, known as “Jardinero”. Prosecutors allege Flores Silva oversaw the trafficking of cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine into the United States while coordinating the laundering of drug proceeds back into Mexico. The case marks a significant escalation in th

The UK government has brought into force the Sanctions (EU Exit) (Miscellaneous Amendments) Regulations 2026, introducing a series of technical but operationally significant updates for firms subject to UK sanctions compliance obligations. The changes affect reporting thresholds, licensing procedures and the interpretation of existing sanctions exceptions. Firms operating in regulated sectors, particularly those with anti-money laundering and sanctions reporting obligations,

For over two decades, the financial services industry has invested heavily in the architecture of compliance. Transaction monitoring systems, sanctions screening engines, customer risk models and suspicious activity reporting workflows have been built, tested, upgraded and rebuilt. Regulatory expectations have sharpened. Enforcement penalties have escalated. In 2025 alone, anti-money laundering (AML) related fines exceeded $1.1 billion in the US, with crypto exchanges, money

FinCEN’s 11 May 2026 Alert signals a renewed enforcement focus on Iran-linked illicit finance, with particular attention on the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), its oil smuggling networks and the financial infrastructure used to move proceeds through the international system. The Alert is significant because it connects several core risk areas: shadow fleet activity, front company abuse, exchange house networks, money services businesses, trust and company service pr

The FCA has secured an additional 499-day prison sentence against convicted money launderer Richard Faithfull after he failed to fully satisfy a confiscation order linked to a £2.5 million laundering operation tied to overseas investment frauds. Faithfull, now 36, was originally sentenced in 2021 to 5 years and 10 months in prison following an FCA prosecution. Authorities said he played a role in a transnational organised crime network that laundered proceeds from at least se

A Michigan man has been sentenced to 20 years in prison after being convicted of attempting to provide material support to ISIS and possessing a destructive device, in a case that highlights continuing US counterterrorism enforcement against domestic support networks linked to foreign terrorist organisations. Aws Mohammed Naser, 38, formerly of Westland, Michigan, was convicted by a jury following a five-week trial. Prosecutors said Naser twice attempted to provide material s

On 11 March 2026, the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) lifted the restrictions on Revolut's UK banking licence, granting Revolut Bank UK Ltd full authorisation to operate as a bank in its home market. The announcement ended an application process that had begun in January 2021 and had, over the intervening five years, become a case study in the regulatory difficulty of licensing a global-scale neobank. Yet the granting of the licence does not draw a line under Revolut's