On 3 June 2026 the Authority for Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism (AMLA) opened a consultation on how firms should watch a customer relationship once it has begun. It reads, at first, like housekeeping: guidance issued under Article 26(5) of the Anti-Money Laundering Regulation (AMLR), horizontal in scope, technologically neutral, insistently proportionate. More than 1,200 people joined the public hearing on 2 July, which is not the audience an

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 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

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

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

A Cuban national has pleaded guilty in the Middle District of Florida to alien smuggling, asylum fraud and money laundering offences arising from a scheme that moved thousands of individuals into the US through fraudulent immigration applications. Yuniel Lima-Santos, 31, of Tampa, admitted conspiring with others to operate a smuggling organisation that solicited clients openly across social media platforms, advertising both transport services and bogus visa facilitation. The

The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) has published a Financial Trend Analysis showing that financial institutions identified close to $5 billion in transactions linked to suspected human smuggling over a three-year period. The analysis, released on 13 August 2026, draws on 67,540 Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) reports filed between 2023 and 2025, and sets out a typology set that maps closely onto exposures already sitting in UK remittance and correspondent portfolios. Th

A former relationship manager at a US bank branch in the Sheepshead Bay area of Brooklyn has been sentenced to 18 months in prison for conspiring to launder more than $8 million in healthcare fraud proceeds on behalf of a transnational criminal organisation (TCO). Renat Abramov, 37, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit money laundering in February 2026 and was sentenced on 11 August 2026. The case was investigated by the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Ins

The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), a bureau of the US Department of the Treasury, issued a final rule on 11 August 2026 that permanently removes the requirement for US companies and US persons to report beneficial ownership information under the Corporate Transparency Act (CTA). The rule became effective on 14 August 2026. It carries the regulatory identification number RIN 1506-AB67 and runs to 73 pages. The final rule adopts the exemptions set out in the int