December 18 - The Public Prosecution Service (OM) has decided against prosecuting former ING CEO Ralph Hamers for his role in a money laundering scandal at the bank. Prosecutors concluded after an investigation that there is “insufficient legally convincing evidence” for a criminal case against the high-ranking banker for crimes that happened from within ING. ING settled for 775 million euros with the OM in 2018 for lackluster money laundering controls. The OM decided not to prosecute Hamers, who was the CEO for ING at the time, but financial activist Pieter Lakeman said this was unjustified. The activist took the case to the court of appeal, which ruled at the end of 2020 that the OM did have to investigate and prosecute Hamers.

December 18 - Through some news, I have learned how crazy some collectors can be when it comes to rare cards. For example, in July of 2022, WWE Superstar Logan Paul paid over 5 million dollars for a Pikachu Illustrator card, making it the most expensive Pokémon card ever traded. The whopping value held by rare Pokémon cards makes them not only favored by collectors but also criminals, who take them as a tool to launder dirty money.

December 17 - The son-in-law of a prominent Venezuelan opposition leader was sentenced Tuesday to two and a half years in prison for his role in a vast conspiracy to siphon $1.2 billion from the state-owned oil company, some of which allegedly landed into accounts controlled by President Nicolás Maduro ’s stepsons. Fernando Vuteff, 53, was arrested on a U.S. warrant in 2022 in Switzerland while on a visit to retrieve a valuable watch from a safe deposit box held at a bank in Zurich. The Argentine asset manager is the son-in-law of former Caracas Mayor Antonio Ledezma, a fierce Maduro opponent. He was charged in Miami federal court with laundering bribes and illicit proceeds from a fake foreign currency exchange scheme involving senior Venezuelan officials.

December 17 - The federal government says it plans to boost penalties for money laundering by 40 times as part of several measures it wants to roll out to crack down on the issue. The proposal would see the maximum administrative penalty against banks and other reporting entities rise to $20 million per violation, up from $500,000.