July 03 - Estonia said on Friday that it wanted to receive a share of any fines imposed by the United States if banks are found guilty of money laundering in the Baltic nation in ongoing inquiries. U.S. authorities are investigating Denmark’s largest bank Danske, which was forced out of Estonia after it admitted that 200 billion euros ($226 billion) in suspicious payments had been made through its branch there.

July 03 - Panama’s last two presidents, Ricardo Martinelli and Juan Carlos Varela, were charged Thursday with money laundering, as two separate scandals tarnished the political legacy of the former allies turned enemies. Martinelli was charged with money laundering over the so-called “New Business” case in which a publishing group was allegedly purchased with government funds during his 2009-14 term.

July 02 - Israeli businessman Dan Gertler, an associate of former president of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) Joseph Kabila, has circumvented US sanctions leveled against him by making use of an international money laundering network, two groups claimed Thursday. Dan Gertler has been under sanctions by the US State Department since December 2017 for having signed “opaque and corrupt mining and oil contracts.”

July 01 - The B.C. Lottery Corporation has finally given up a decade-long fight to keep a secret. In 2010, BCLC was hit with a $700,000 fine by FINTRAC, the country's money laundering watchdog, for undisclosed violations of the Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act.

June 29 - Bitcoins were moved across the borders in 74% of all transactions in 2019, which heightens risks of money laundering, the experts of the cryptocurrency research company CipherTrace found out. They also added that insufficient KYC/AML measures may pose risks for bands and other regulated financial institutions. They have analyzed how the implementation of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) recommendations for the cryptographic industry will affect banks that are increasingly involved in servicing industry participants.

June 29 - When customs agents in Riga followed a tip and searched passengers arriving on a private jet from Ukraine last year, they hit the jackpot. Luggage belonging to the four travelers contained about $1 million in U.S. and European banknotes. The contraband was seized. Latvia, a European Union and euro-area country of just 1.9 million people, hit the headlines in recent years for the piles of dirty money sloshing around its banks. A crackdown has ended much of the illegal activity -- often wire transfers from clients in the former Soviet Union looking for a gateway for funds into the EU. Some more old-fashioned methods of moving money persist, however.

June 25 - The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) indicted the founder of “AML Bitcoin” on money laundering and wire fraud charges. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) also filed charges, alleging the AML Bitcoin team violated federal securities laws. According to a court filing dated June 22, Texas resident Rowland Marcus Andrade, the founder of the NAC Foundation, allegedly raised funds by conducting an initial coin offering for tokens representing AML Bitcoin, telling investors the tokens would ultimately be converted into actual AML Bitcoin (which isn’t actual bitcoin). The SEC and DOJ also charged longtime DC lobbyist Jack Abramoff on conspiracy, lobbying disclosure and deceptive practices counts, alleging he helped mislead investors in the project.