April 12 - A “naive” young woman who was recruited as a money mule to launder thousands of euro through her bank account ended up dragging her girlfriend into the crime, a court heard. Keelin Murphy allowed fraudsters to transfer more than €9,000 in criminal proceeds to her, then moved €2,000 of it into her then-girlfriend Chloe O’Driscoll’s account.

April 10 - More than six years after his arrest in a major corruption investigation, Portugal’s former Prime Minister Jose Socrates will stand trial, but only on lesser charges of money laundering and falsifying documents, a judge in Lisbon ruled on Friday. In a decision that sent shockwaves through the country, Judge Ivo Rosa of Portugal’s criminal court for preliminary hearings dismissed the corruption accusations against Socrates, 63, as weak, inconsistent or lacking sufficient evidence, and noted that the statute of limitations had run out on some of them.

April 09 - The senior Mountie in charge of a B.C. money laundering unit in January 2011 says he was “taken aback” by then minister of public safety and solicitor general Rich Coleman’s dismissal of his assessment of money laundering activity in government-regulated casinos. Before the B.C. Commission of Inquiry into Money Laundering, retired inspector Barry Baxter described Coleman’s well-publicized disagreement with the RCMP as not grounded in facts.

April 09 - On March 29, 2021, the SEC's Division of Examinations issued a risk alert reminding broker-dealers of their anti-money laundering (AML) obligations. The alert comes on the heels of SEC examinations uncovering deficiencies in some firms' AML policies and practices, and highlights broker-dealers' duties under the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) to establish and implement policies designed to identify suspicious transactions and to file Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs). The risk alert is only the latest step by the SEC to emphasize the importance of AML issues to the broker-dealer community and likely confirms the SEC will continue to focus on this issue. This client alert examines the SEC's historical focus, a recent SEC litigation victory enforcing these provisions, and the key takeaways from the risk alert.

April 08 - The former head of the RCMP Integrated Proceeds of Crime Unit told B.C.’s public inquiry into money laundering Thursday that despite widespread belief international organized crime was filtering money through the province’s casinos, there was no political will to stop it. Barry Baxter told the Cullen Commission that when he took command in 2010 he had no doubt organized crime groups were using casinos to launder cash.

April 07 - A commission of inquiry into money laundering in British Columbia is adding former and current cabinet ministers to its witness list. On its website, the Cullen commission says former premier Christy Clark is among those scheduled to testify later this month.

April 04 - A Sydney man has been sentenced to 16 months in jail for using cryptocurrency and a series of stolen identities to launder money. The 46-year-old set up cryptocurrency accounts in seven different names using stolen identity details, and deposited Bitcoin into each.