When will the US DOJ and the Treasury draw the line? — A bill designed to regulate the world of art and antiquities entitled, The Enablers Act, was introduced last year and passed a House vote, but then quietly died on the Senate floor in December. It is not the last we will see or hear of this bill, or something very…

According to the US Department of Justice, Connor Pennington, of Washington DC, pleaded guilty on January 30 to laundering roughly $3.5 million, which was generated by the illegal sale of marijuana. Pennington was the CEO of a company called JointVentures, which operated under the name “Joint Delivery” and served as…

Cannabis is a growth industry that is in dire need of banking services, but minus a federal-level approval to legalize (and regulate) the drug for recreational use that won’t happen. The nation’s big banks are not going to take that risk, even if they are ready to. …

2022 was a banner year for money launderers and financial crooks. In an effort to provide my readers with the year’s top compliance and crime related news I pulled out the top news from each month in 2022, and laid it out below for your review. If you have comments or questions, please leave them here for me. I look forward to a very interesting 2023! -end

Former FBI Special Agent Charles F. McGonigal was arrested at JFK Airport last week along with co-conspirator Sergey Shestakov, and charged with, “violating and conspiring to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (“IEEPA”) and with conspiring to commit money laundering and money laundering,” according to a press release issued…

Female head of a professional money laundering syndicate busted 2022’s news cycle was dominated by cryptocurrency crimes. It is hard to call them FinCrimes, simply because at this point, post FTX scandal, I wonder if crypto was ever a real currency. It seems like more of a scam than anything…

Crypto Crashes into the Christmas Season Like Avalanche — Is it ironic that crypto is crashing Christmas? I think so, considering that cryptocurrency was supposed to be like Santa; a savior for the forgotten and maligned. Instead it turned itself into a pump and dump scheme on a scale that has SEC and Wall Street veterans shaking their heads…

Sergei Potapenko and Ivan Turogin, each 37 years old, were arrested in Estonia last week and are being extradited to the United States to face charges of wire fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering. This case sort of hits close to home as I reside in the Pacific Northwest…

FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried has had a horrible November and it just keeps getting worse. Last Tuesday news broke that Bankman-Fried is being sued by his investors for $11 billion (USD) in the U.S. District Court in Miami, along with those that promoted the FTX brand. That list includes a…