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Global environmental crime—the third largest illicit activity in the world, according to a report by the FATF—is estimated to generate hundreds of billions in illicit proceeds annually.  This criminal activity harms human health, the climate, and natural resources.  To help address the threat presented by environmental crimes, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) issued an environmental crimes and associated illicit financial activity notice (Notice) on November 18, 2021.  The FinCEN Notice states that environmental crime and related illicit financial activity are associated strongly with corruption and transnational criminal organizations, both of which FinCEN has identified as national anti-money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) priorities for financial institutions to detect and report.

We have blogged with increasing frequency (see here, here, here and here) on the nexus between environmental crime and illicit financial flows, and how these money laundering risks are often overlooked and are especially difficult for financial institutions to monitor.  Environmental offenses are also receiving more attention in the U.S., in part because of the growing interest by investors, companies and regulators in ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) concerns.

The Notice includes an appendix that describes five categories of environmental crimes and the illicit financial activity related to them: wildlife trafficking, illegal logging, illegal fishing, illegal mining, and waste and hazardous substances trafficking.  The Notice also includes new suspicious activity report (SAR) filing instructions in order to enhance analysis and reporting of illicit financial flows related to environmental crime.…
Continue Reading FinCEN Issues Notice on Environmental Crimes and Illicit Financial Activity

The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (“FinCEN”) has been busy during the last few weeks – and presumably will remain busy for the rest of 2021, as it attempts to satisfy numerous mandates imposed by the Anti-Money Laundering Act of 2020.  In October, in addition to issuing an analysis of Suspicious Activity Reports and ransomware, FinCEN extended its Geographic Targeting Order for real estate transactions; issued exceptive relief providing that a casino may use suitable non-documentary methods to verify the identity of online customers; and reminded U.S. financial institutions to account for the fact that the Financial Action Task Force added and removed countries from its list of jurisdictions with anti-money laundering (“AML”) deficiencies.  We discuss each of these developments in turn.…
Continue Reading FinCEN Round-Up:  Real Estate GTOs, Exceptive Relief for On-Line Gaming for Non-Documentary Customer Verification, and the FATF Grey and Black Lists

Second Post in a Two-Part Series on Recent OFAC Designations

As we blogged yesterday, OFAC has been busy.  Right before OFAC designated the virtual currency exchange SUEX for allegedly facilitating ransomware payments,  OFAC announced another significant but more traditional action on September 17, 2021 by designating members of a network of Lebanon and Kuwait-based…

Third Post in a Series on the FATF Plenary Outcomes

This blog is the third post on the Financial Action Task Force (“FATF”) fourth Plenary, an event where delegates were invited from around the world to (virtually) meet and discuss a wide range of global financial crimes and ongoing risk areas.  Among the several strategic initiatives identified by FATF was Ethnic or Race Motivated Terrorist Financing (“EoRMTF”), on which FATF issued a report detailing its implications for anti-money laundering (“AML”) and countering the financing of terrorism (“CFT”) (the “Report”).

Similar to FATF’s first-time report regarding environmental crime and money laundering, the Report marks the first time FATF has looked at the financing of ethnically or racially motivated terrorism. The Report highlights how very difficult it can be to identify and trace EoRMTF, including because of the following factors: the major role of so-called “lone wolf” actors; competing legal regimes in different countries; growing transnational links between extreme right wing (“ERW”) groups; limited information on ERW groups; and the fact that some ERW groups are not considered illegal or have not been listed as groups to monitor.  The Report also notes the irony that ERW groups often use legal – not illicit – funds to promote their efforts, and that “ERW groups appear to be less concerned with concealing their transactions than in other forms of [terrorist financing]” – but that “many jurisdictions also reported that ERW actors are becoming increasing operationally sophisticated in how they move [and conceal] their funds.”…
Continue Reading FATF Report Stresses Challenges in Combatting Ethnically- and Racially-Motivated Terrorism

Second Post in a Series on the FATF Plenary Outcomes

As we blogged, last month the Financial Action Task Force (“FATF”) held its fourth Plenary, inviting delegates from around the world to (virtually) meet and discuss a wide range of global financial crimes and ongoing risk areas. Following the Plenary, FATF identified a number of strategic initiatives for future research and publication, and issued six reports to detail their findings on specific topics. One such report, Money Laundering from Environmental Crime (the “Report”), and its implications for anti-money laundering (“AML”) and countering the financing of terrorist (“CFT”), will be the focus of this post.

The 66-page Report is compiled from case studies and best practices submitted by over 40 countries, as well as input from international organizations like the International Monetary Fund and World Bank. While this Report is the first deep dive into environmental crimes and recommendations for members of the FATF Global Network, it is not the first time FATF has addressed environmental issues. The current Report aims to build upon FATF’s previous study on money laundering and the illegal wildlife trade, on which we also blogged. The current Report is also connected to earlier FATF studies on money laundering risks from the gold trade and the diamond trade.  Indeed, the Report references U.S. enforcement cases involving money laundering and gold or diamonds on which we previously have blogged (see here, here and here).

As this post will discuss, these areas of money laundering risk are often overlooked and are especially difficult to monitor. Further, the Report finds that “[l]imited cooperation between AML/CFT authorities and environmental crime and protection agencies in most countries presents a major barrier to effectively tackle [money laundering] from environmental crimes.”  Stated otherwise, government AML/financial flow experts and government environmental law experts don’t understand or even consider each other’s area of expertise, and often don’t communicate with each other, resulting in missed enforcement opportunities.  With global environmental crimes generating up to $281 billion per year, the Report suggests that government interventions are not proportionate to the severity of this issue. By issuing this Report, FATF hopes to raise awareness of the scope and scale of harm caused by environmental crimes and related money laundering, and enhance collaboration by financial crime and environmental crime enforcement officials.…
Continue Reading FATF Issues First-Ever Report on Environmental Crime and Money Laundering

On November 5, 2020, the Council of the European Union approved a new action plan to strengthen anti-money laundering and combatting terrorism financing across the EU. The Action Plan, “an Action Plan for a comprehensive Union policy on preventing money laundering and terrorist financing,” appears to be motivated by the perceived failures in preventing the Danske Bank scandal (which we’ve blogged about here, and more generally, here, here, here, here, here, and here). In light of “[m]ajor divergences” and “serious weaknesses” in enforcement, it appears the Council believes the EU’s “anti-money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism” framework (“AML/CFT framework”) “needs to be significantly improved.” As we have blogged, the EU historically has issued numerous reports identifying systemic vulnerabilities to money laundering and suggesting process-based recommendations for how to address such threats. These recommendations typically have not addressed a basic issue: the actual prosecution of bad actors.

This new Action Plan contains some teeth. If its legislative proposals are enacted and implemented, it would allow the EU to close cross-border loopholes, update its rulebook, and strengthen the implementation and enforcement of the AML/CFT framework through EU-level supervision. Even if the more ambitious proposals do not pass legislative scrutiny, the Action Plan shows the EU is keenly focused on combatting the threat of cross-border money laundering and that it has many tools available at its disposal, some of which it is already using. Unified and coordinated implementation of the AML/CFT framework coupled with increased information sharing between members and between public and private partners should aid detection and enforcement efforts across the EU.…
Continue Reading Council of the European Union Unveils Ambitious New AML Action Plan

The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) recently published a report titled Virtual Assets: Red Flag Indicators of Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing. The report discusses a number of red flag indicators of suspicious virtual asset (VA) activities identified “through more than one hundred case studies collected since 2017 from across the FATF Global Network, literature reviews, and open source research.” The purpose of the report is to help financial institutions (FIs), designated non-financial businesses and professions (DNFBPs), and virtual asset service providers (VASPs) to create a “risk-based approach to their Customer Due Diligence (CDD) requirements.”

The report focuses on the following six categories of red flag indicators: those (1) related to transactions, (2) related to transaction patterns, (3) related to anonymity, (4) about senders or recipients, (5) in the source of funds or wealth, and (6) related to geographical risks.

When discussing red flags relating to transactions, FATF suggests that the size and frequency of transactions can be a good indicator of suspicious activity. For example, making multiple high-value transactions in short succession (i.e. within a 24-hour period) or in a staggered and regular pattern, with no further transactions during a long period afterwards. With regard to transaction patterns, FATF notes that large initial deposits with new users or transactions involving multiple accounts should also raise suspicion.…
Continue Reading FATF Identifies Red Flags for Virtual Assets and Money Laundering

AML Standards May Exist in Theory, But Often are Not Enforced in Practice

Today we are very pleased to welcome, once again, guest bloggers Gretta Fenner and Dr. Kateryna Boguslavska of the Basel Institute on Governance (“Basel Institute”). The Basel Institute recently issued its Basel AML Index for 2020. Ms. Fenner and Dr. Boguslavska guest blogged for Money Laundering Watch last year on this data-rich and fascinating annual Index, which is one of several online tools developed by the Basel Institute to help both public- and private-sector practitioners tackle financial crime. The Index is a research-based ranking that assesses countries’ risk exposure to money laundering and terrorist financing.

Established in 2003, the Basel Institute is a not-for-profit Swiss foundation dedicated to working with public and private partners around the world to prevent and combat corruption, and is an Associated Institute of the University of Basel. The Basel Institute’s work involves action, advice and research on issues including anti-corruption collective action, asset recovery, corporate governance and compliance, and more.

Gretta Fenner is the Managing Director of the Basel Institute, where she also holds the position of Director of the Institute’s International Centre for Asset Recovery. She is a political scientist by training and holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the Otto-Suhr-Institute at the Free University Berlin, Germany, and the Paris Institute for Political Science (Sciences Po), France. She also holds an MBA from the Curtin University Graduate School of Business, Australia.

Dr. Kateryna Boguslavska is Project Manager for the Basel AML Index at the Basel Institute. A political scientist, she holds a PhD in Political Science from the National Academy of Science in Ukraine, a master’s degree in Comparative and International Studies from ETH Zurich as well as a master’s degree in Political Science from the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy in Ukraine. Before joining the Basel Institute, Dr. Boguslavska worked at Chatham House in London as an Academy Fellow for the Russia and Eurasia program.

This blog post again takes the form of a Q & A session, in which Ms. Fenner and Dr. Boguslavska respond to several questions posed by Money Laundering Watch about the Basel AML Index 2020. We hope you enjoy this discussion of global money laundering risks — which addresses AML standards vs. their actual implementation, human trafficking, AML vulnerabilities in the U.S., the effects of covid-19, and more. –Peter Hardy…
Continue Reading The Basel AML Index 2020: Across the Globe, Weak Oversight and Dormant Enforcement Systems. A Guest Blog.

Is Art an “Ideal Playing Ground” for Money Laundering?

Last week, the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations for the U.S. Senate released a detailed, 147-page report titled “The Art Industry and U.S. Policies That Undermine Sanctions” (“the Report”). Although the Report ostensibly addresses the evasion of U.S. sanctions law, much of the Report actually focuses on the connection between high-end art and potential money laundering schemes and anti-money laundering (“AML”) risks. Among other proposals, the Report recommends that the Bank Secrecy Act (“BSA”) be amended to include art dealers as “financial institutions” subject to AML obligations under the BSA.

The Report focuses on an elaborate case study documenting how certain Russian oligarchs allegedly used transactions involving high-end art and shell companies to evade U.S. sanctions, imposed on them on March 20, 2014 in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the annexation of Crimea. We will not focus on the detailed allegations in the Report regarding the particular facts of this alleged scheme, or the alleged involvement of certain major art auction houses. Rather, we will focus on the more general sections in the Report relating to systemic concerns about the potential role of high-end art in money laundering schemes, and the more general findings of fact and recommendations generated by these concerns.

The Report was not issued in a vacuum; rather, it clearly was written in part to spur legislative action. Proposed legislation on BSA/AML reform is pending before the U.S. Congress and Senate, including a proposal – currently nestled within a lengthy proposed amendment to a defense spending bill – to (i) add to the list of “financial institutions” covered by the BSA “a person trading or acting as an intermediary in the trade of antiquities, including an advisor, consultant or any other person who engages as a business in the solicitation of the sale of antiquities;” and (ii) require a study by the Secretary of the Treasury “on the facilitation of money laundering and terror finance through the trade of works of art or antiquities,” including an evaluation of whether certain art industry markets (“by size, entity type, domestic or international geographic locations, or otherwise”) should be regulated under the BSA. And, this general issue has been percolating for some time. Last year, we blogged in detail about the potential role of high-end art and antiquities in money laundering schemes, and the voluntary AML programs which art dealers might adopt to combat such schemes.…
Continue Reading Using Art to Evade Sanctions and Launder Money: The Senate Report

The Border with North Korea

Indictment Again Highlights the Role of Correspondent Banking in Money Laundering

On May 28, 2020, the U.S. Department of Justice (“DOJ”) unsealed a 50-page indictment against 28 North Korean and 5 Chinese bankers accused of using more than 250 front companies to obscure $2.5 billion in illicit financial dealings (“the Indictment”). The complex and far-flung scheme purportedly involved covert branches of North Korea’s state-owned Foreign Trade Bank (“FTB”)—all opened in foreign countries in an attempt to access the U.S. financial system, and to circumvent sanctions intended to guard against threats to national security, foreign policy, and the U.S. economy. The Indictment charges the individuals with conspiring to launder money, violations of the “international” prong of the money laundering statute (about which we have blogged), bank fraud, and violations of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act.

Although the Indictment is interesting standing alone, it also represents the latest in a series of enforcement actions involving North Korea and the U.S. financial system.…
Continue Reading 28 North Korean and 5 Chinese Bankers Accused of a $2.5 Billion Laundering Scheme