As digital currency continues to evolve, it continues to pose unfolding compliance, regulatory and criminal law challenges. We will present two webinars on this topic in September, in which we will discuss issues posed under the Bank Secrecy Act and the money laundering and federal securities laws, among other issues.
The first webinar, “Current
As digital currency becomes more ubiquitous, state and federal regulators across the United States, as well as regulators in many other countries, are examining how existing regulatory structures need to be adapted to account for unique aspects of digital currency. News from both India and Australia reflect different approaches to the ever-evolving world of digital currency and potential money laundering risks associated with that currency. As we previously have blogged, U.S. enforcement personnel aggressively have asserted jurisdiction over international digital currency operations. As we will discuss, it appears that digital currency businesses will find themselves having to comply with a kaleidoscope of various Anti-Money Laundering (“AML”) regulatory regimes across the globe.
Continue Reading As Digital Currency Spreads, So Does its Global Regulation: India and Australia Enter the Fray
On June 29, dual trial verdicts in the Southern District of New York paved the way for the government to seize 650 Fifth Avenue, a 36-story building in Manhattan valued at up to $1 billion (“the Property”). The defendants, representing New York entities that trace their roots to Iran, were convicted of violating U.S. sanctions and money laundering. With this decision, the government can lay claim to the largest terrorism-related civil forfeiture in U.S. history and, as promised, provide the sale’s proceeds to terror victims who had previously won $5 billion in judgments against Iran for terror-related activity.
Continue Reading Lessons in Civil Forfeiture and Attachment: U.S. May Seize 650 Fifth Avenue
We were pleased to contribute an article to the May 2017 issue of Business Crimes Bulletin titled “The Growing Convergence of Cyber-Related Crime and Suspicious Activity Reporting.” 
Regulators and law enforcement are taking proactive steps to further leverage anti-money laundering monitoring and reporting tools in their battle with cyber attacks and cyber crimes. In-house legal
On Monday, the state of Florida moved a step closer towards amending its money laundering statute to include the nefarious use of bitcoin and other virtual currencies. The bill, H.B. 1379, has sailed through a committee vote and will now be presented to the floor. If the bill passes, it will serve, in pertinent part, to define bitcoin and “virtual currency” (“VC”) as “monetary instruments” within the meaning of the state’s money laundering statute; in the same vein, bitcoin will be defined as a “medium of exchange in electronic or digital format that is not a coin or currency of the United States or any other country.”
Continue Reading Florida Lawmakers Seek to Bring Virtual Currency into the Fold
Banks stand to advance the fight against human trafficking and modern slavery by reporting suspicious transactions and other financial activity that raise red flags, according to a report on March 15, 2017. Published by the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), a renowned British think tank, the report notes that banks and other financial service providers
The Philippines has been identified by the U.S. as a “major money-laundering country” in the 2017 International Narcotics Control Strategy Report (“Report”), published this month. The country now joins 87 others as one “whose financial institutions engage in currency transactions involving significant amounts of proceeds from international narcotics trafficking.” See 22 U.S.C. § 2291(e)(7).
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The founders of Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca were arrested on Saturday, following their indictment on money-laundering charges allegedly tied to the ever-widening Petrobas corruption scandal in Brazil.
Kenia Porcell, the country’s Attorney General, tweeted news of the two men’s arrest: “Raid of offices of law firm that created limited liability companies in Brazil linked to #LavaJato #PanamaPapers.”
Continue Reading Mossack Fonseca Founders Arrested and Detained on Money Laundering Charges
The New York State Department of Financial Services (“DFS”) has issued its fifth BitLicense to date, continuing a marked effort to bring legitimacy and controls to the virtual currency (“VC”) industry, whose advantages in lowering costs and creating efficiencies have been marred with concerns of nefarious use.
Founded in 2012, Coinbase, Inc. operates as a digital currency exchange and is perched at the top of well-funded startups in the VC industry. Its BitLicense signifies an important milestone in the company’s nearly two-year, multi-state licensing strategy. In the same vein, the fact that a VC market-leader has sought after and is now approved to do business in New York is an equally important occasion for the BitLicense program itself.
Continue Reading Coinbase the Latest to Obtain New York BitLicense
In part two of our review of the 2016 developments in Anti-Money Laundering (AML), the Bank Secrecy Act, (BSA), the criminal money laundering statutes, forfeiture, and related issues, we discuss four additional key topics: