# September 17, 2026
DOJ returns $29.7m to Curacao after unlicensed lottery fraud and laundering scheme
The Justice Department announced on September 17, 2026, that it is transferring
approximately $29.7 million back to the government of Curacao in three installments. The
money is what remains of an eight-year scheme run by Robertico A. Dos Santos, who operated
an unlicensed lottery and failed to pay taxes on the proceeds. Dos Santos deposited the
illicit income into investment accounts at a Miami bank, opening those accounts in the
names of companies he controlled rather than his own, a layering step that separated the
money from its criminal source and made it harder to trace back to him.
The recovery followed a pretrial restraining order and a final forfeiture order issued by a
Curacao court, which the department’s Money Laundering, Narcotics, and Forfeiture Section
enforced through a U.S. district court in Washington, D.C. Officials said the funds will be
returned to Curacao under a regime of regular audits, with no disbursements allowed to Dos
Santos or his family. The case illustrates a basic laundering technique: routing proceeds
through company-held bank accounts to obscure the true owner, and how cross-border asset
forfeiture cooperation can unwind it years later. More on how
shell companies are used to hide ownership of illicit funds.
Related: Shell companies and nominees
# September 17, 2026
US sanctions Iranian crypto exchange BitBank over bitcoin flows to the IRGC
The US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control designated BitBank, an Iranian digital asset exchange, on September 17, 2026. Treasury said Babak Zanjani, an Iranian financier who was already sanctioned, used BitBank between June and July 2026 to move “hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of Bitcoin” to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). It also said Hormuz Safe Marine Services Authority, an entity sanctioned earlier, has used BitBank since June to transfer payments it received to the Iranian regime.
Treasury also designated BitBank’s software developer, Pishtaz Simorgh Electronic Trade Company, and three Zanjani associates: Hossein Ali Zaker Hossein, Mohammad Mahdi Zaker Hossein and Seyed Adel Heidari. The action used Executive Order 13902, which covers Iran’s digital asset sector, and is part of Operation Economic Outcast. Once an exchange is designated, US property tied to it is blocked, and foreign firms that keep dealing with it risk sanctions of their own. Investigators treat exchanges like this as choke points, because coins must eventually be converted or cashed out somewhere. See how detection works for the signals that lead to actions like this.
# September 15, 2026
Maduro ally Alex Saab pleads guilty to laundering bribery proceeds, forfeits $195m
Alex Saab, a former Venezuelan industry minister and close financial ally of former
president Nicolas Maduro, pleaded guilty on September 15, 2026, in Miami federal court to
conspiring to launder monetary instruments. Prosecutors said Saab ran a near decade-long
scheme built around CLAP, a Venezuelan government program meant to supply food and
medicine to the poor. Companies secretly controlled by Saab and his associates won CLAP
import contracts after paying bribes to officials, then billed for goods they never fully
delivered. To move and hide the proceeds, Saab set up shell companies outside Venezuela and
routed money into the United States and elsewhere, using fake invoices and false shipping
records to make the payments look legitimate.
As part of the plea, Saab agreed to forfeit $195 million and cooperate with prosecutors,
including in the ongoing federal case against Maduro. He faces a maximum sentence of 20
years, though prosecutors agreed to recommend the low end of the guideline range. Saab was
pardoned by President Biden in 2023 as part of a prisoner swap, then indicted again in
January 2026 for conduct the pardon did not cover. The case shows how shell companies with
no real operations, paired with falsified trade paperwork, can turn bribery money into
ordinary-looking import business revenue. More on how
shell companies launder proceeds this way.
Related: Shell companies and nominees
# September 15, 2026
Mozambican network leader gets 11 years for laundering $500m in drug proceeds
Norolamin Gulam, a Mozambican national living in Portugal, was sentenced on September 15,
2026, to 135 months (more than 11 years) in federal prison by a judge in the Eastern
District of Texas. He also has to pay a $7.5 million money judgment. Gulam pleaded guilty
to conspiracy to commit money laundering after prosecutors identified him as the leader of
a transnational laundering organization active since 2021, with reach across Europe,
Africa, Southeast Asia, the United States, and Central and South America.
Investigators said Gulam laundered a minimum of $500 million in drug trafficking proceeds
by running the money through multiple businesses and real estate ventures, a common way to
turn illicit cash into assets that look like ordinary commercial income. The case was
investigated under the Homeland Security Task Force initiative, which pooled resources from
the FBI, ICE Homeland Security Investigations, the DEA, ATF, IRS Criminal Investigation, and
other federal agencies. Cases at this scale usually break open when banks or title companies
flag unusual property purchases or business transactions that do not match a buyer’s known
income, prompting the suspicious activity reports that give investigators a paper trail to
follow. More on how real estate gets used to clean large sums.
Related: Real estate
# September 15, 2026
UK unveils 500 million pound plan and 500 new officers to chase dirty money
The UK Home Office and HM Treasury unveiled a new Anti-Money Laundering and Asset Recovery Strategy on September 15, 2026, backed by 500 million pounds over three years from the Economic Crime Levy charged on regulated firms. The money funds 500 new officers spread across police forces, the National Crime Agency, and the Crown Prosecution Service, working alongside the Financial Conduct Authority and Serious Fraud Office to trace and seize criminal money, including proceeds moved through Russian-linked laundering networks.
Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood said the goal was to “break their grip on our communities” by going after the profits behind organised crime gangs. Treasury officials pointed to results from the past year as the model to scale up: authorities stripped nearly 350 million pounds from criminals, disrupted around 2,700 illicit finance operations, and secured almost 4,000 money laundering convictions, while a related crackdown called Operation Destabilise seized 25 million pounds in cash and crypto from networks that turn street cash into digital assets for organized crime. The government estimates around 100 billion pounds is laundered through the UK every year. How suspicious activity reports and asset seizure actually work is covered in how detection works.
# September 14, 2026
DOJ seeks $61 million tied to $1.5 billion Iran oil crypto-laundering network
Federal prosecutors in Manhattan filed a civil forfeiture complaint on September 14, 2026, against approximately $61 million in cryptocurrency they allege are proceeds of black-market sales of sanctioned Iranian crude oil and petroleum products. The complaint names two Chinese companies, Blessed Trust and Hexa Whale, which prosecutors say posed as a wealth-management firm and a commodities broker but actually used trading accounts at the exchange Binance to convert oil-sale proceeds into cryptocurrency and move them toward the Iranian government and its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Prosecutors say a linked cluster of unhosted crypto addresses, which they call “Entity A,” received and distributed more than $1.5 billion in illicit oil proceeds, funneling money to IRGC-linked money services businesses and an Iranian cryptocurrency exchange through transactions designed to obscure who controlled the funds. Binance itself is not named as a defendant; a company spokesperson said it does not permit transactions with sanctioned individuals. As a civil forfeiture action, the complaint’s allegations must still be proven in court before the government can keep the funds. The layered use of shifting crypto addresses and offshore exchange accounts to hide a money trail is explained on chain-hopping and cross-chain bridges.
Related: Chain hopping and cross-chain bridges
# September 14, 2026
US sanctions Russia's VTB Bank over Iran shadow-banking ties
The US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control designated VTB Bank, one of Russia’s largest financial institutions, on September 14, 2026, for helping Iran evade sanctions. Treasury said VTB opened bank offices in Iran and built correspondent banking relationships with sanctioned Iranian financial institutions, then set up a settlement system using correspondent accounts in Iranian rials and Russian rubles designed to move billions of dollars in frozen Iranian assets and expand trade between the two countries.
The designation came under Executive Order 13902, which targets Iran’s financial sector, layering onto sanctions VTB already carries over Russia’s war in Ukraine. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the action was part of “Operation Economic Outcast,” a campaign he announced in August 2026 to sever the financial channels that let Iran sell oil and access hard currency abroad. Any foreign bank that keeps dealing with VTB now risks its own US sanctions exposure, since correspondent accounts are the choke point US authorities use to cut a foreign bank off from the dollar system. That is the same mechanism, and the same kind of shadow-banking workaround, described in how detection works.
# September 13, 2026
Bangladesh anti-graft agency opens Tk11,000 crore laundering probe into ex-adviser
Bangladesh’s Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) said on September 13, 2026 that it has opened an inquiry into Asif Mahmud Shojib Bhuiyan, a former adviser in the country’s interim government, over allegations covering roughly Tk13,000 crore (about $1 billion) in bribery, embezzlement and money laundering. A citizen complaint reviewed by the ACC alleges Mahmud helped move about Tk11,000 crore (roughly $890 million) out of the country through relatives, including his brothers-in-law and a nephew: Tk4,500 crore to Dubai, Tk3,000 crore to Singapore, Tk2,000 crore to Australia and Tk1,500 crore to Switzerland. Investigators say the money was used to buy villas, invest in foreign businesses and hold funds in Swiss bank accounts.
The remaining allegations concern bribes for government appointments, promotions and contract tenders during Mahmud’s tenure overseeing the Youth and Sports Ministry and local government projects. Mahmud, now a spokesperson for the National Citizen Party, has denied the claims as politically motivated and sent the ACC a legal notice demanding it retract a statement suggesting the allegations have “preliminary truth.” The ACC says no findings are established yet and the inquiry will trace the funds and everyone’s role. Moving bribe or embezzled money into foreign real estate and business investments to make it usable abroad is a classic laundering step; see how real estate purchases turn illicit cash into legitimate-looking assets.
Related: Real estate
# September 10, 2026
Colombian national indicted over $135 million drug-to-stablecoin laundering scheme
A federal grand jury in Greenville, South Carolina, indicted William Andres Holguin Mendez, 40, of Colombia, on a single money laundering conspiracy count. Prosecutors say an FBI investigation that began in August 2023 traced drug proceeds moving through shell company bank accounts in the Greenville area into a single account at a US-based cryptocurrency exchange, all controlled by Holguin Mendez under the exchange’s Know Your Customer records.
From there, the indictment alleges, the cash was converted into stablecoin and moved to a foreign-based exchange, again registered to Holguin Mendez, before being converted to Colombian pesos and distributed across 207 Colombian bank accounts. Investigators say roughly $135 million passed through the scheme between March 2023 and May 2024. Holguin Mendez faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted and is detained pending trial; all charges remain accusations at this stage. The case was brought under the Homeland Security Task Force initiative, with the FBI, DEA, and Homeland Security Investigations involved. The stablecoin conversion step is explained on stablecoins and OTC brokers.
Related: Shell companies and nominees · Stablecoins and OTC brokers
# September 9, 2026
Treasury and DOJ dismantle Xinbi Guarantee, a $24 billion crypto laundering marketplace
On September 7, 2026, a federal court in Washington authorized the seizure of Telegram channels used by Xinbi Guarantee, a Chinese-language marketplace where vendors advertised “washing” scam proceeds, building fake investment websites, and recruiting workers for Southeast Asian scam compounds. Two days later, the Justice Department’s Scam Center Strike Force and Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control moved together: OFAC designated Xinbi as a transnational criminal organization, along with Cambodia-based wallet developer Anwen Technology and Singapore-based messaging app developer SafeW Technology, and the Strike Force seized wallets and restrained more than $52 million in cryptocurrency linked to the network.
Treasury said Xinbi has processed the equivalent of over $24 billion in digital assets and cash since it launched around 2022, putting it among the largest “guarantee marketplace” laundering hubs identified so far, alongside Cambodia’s Huione Group. Xinbi worked like an escrow service for criminals: it held a buyer’s payment until a vendor’s laundering or scam-support job was finished, letting strangers who would never meet trust each other. Stablecoin issuer Tether assisted the investigation. How these marketplaces move stolen money into cash is explained on stablecoins and OTC brokers.
Related: Stablecoins and OTC brokers
# September 8, 2026
Europol dismantles 'Dubai Bank' hawala-style network tied to cocaine trafficking
Spain’s Policía Nacional, backed by Europol, arrested 21 people on July 22, 2026, tied to a clandestine money-transfer network investigators call the “Dubai Bank.” Six more international arrest warrants were carried out afterward in the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, and the Netherlands. Authorities identified, seized, or froze about EUR 20 million: 48 properties worth over EUR 14 million, luxury vehicles worth over EUR 1.6 million, and 121 bank accounts holding EUR 2.3 million.
The case grew out of a 2021 cocaine seizure off the Spanish coast that led investigators up the money trail to the network’s brokers. Rather than physically moving cash across borders, the network settled value through internal bookkeeping, trade transactions, and company accounts, matching each transfer with a token, often a banknote’s serial number, so brokers could verify a handoff without ever meeting. A leading figure in the network was named a Europol High Value Target. The United States, Netherlands, and Sweden also supported the investigation. This is a modern, large-scale version of the broker network described in how hawala works.
Related: Hawala and informal value transfer
# September 8, 2026
Ringleader of $245 million crypto theft and laundering ring pleads guilty
Malone Lam, a 22-year-old Singaporean citizen who had been living in Miami, pleaded guilty on September 8, 2026 to a racketeering conspiracy charge built around stealing cryptocurrency from victims he met through online gaming platforms. According to the Justice Department, Lam and his co-conspirators used social engineering, and at times home break-ins, to get the information needed to drain victims’ crypto wallets between October 2023 and May 2025. The largest single theft, almost $245.1 million taken from a Washington, D.C. resident targeted in August 2024, accounted for most of the scheme’s proceeds.
Rather than banking the money quietly, the group spent it in ways meant to be seen: nightclub tabs running up to $500,000 a night, luxury watches and handbags handed out at parties, rental mansions in Los Angeles, the Hamptons, and Miami, private jets, bodyguards, and exotic cars worth up to $3.8 million apiece. That kind of visible, fast spending is a signature of the last stage of laundering, explained on integration. Lam is the eleventh defendant to plead guilty in the case; a status hearing is set for December 8, 2026.
# September 3, 2026
FinCEN renews its Southwest border cash reporting order and narrows the map
FinCEN has reissued the geographic targeting order covering money services businesses
near the Southwest border. The new order took effect on 3 September 2026, the day after
the previous one lapsed, and runs to 1 March 2027. Inside the covered ZIP codes, a money
services business must report currency transactions of $1,000 or more but not more than
$10,000, and verify who is presenting them. That is a tenth of the ordinary $10,000
currency transaction report threshold, which still applies nationwide, as does the $2,000
suspicious activity report threshold for money services businesses.
The coverage map changed. This order lists ZIP codes in Cameron, El Paso, Hidalgo,
Maverick and Webb Counties in Texas, and Bernalillo, Dona Ana and San Juan Counties in
New Mexico. The order that ran from March to September 2026 also reached areas in Arizona
and California, so the new one is a narrower and more targeted instrument rather than a
straight renewal. Businesses newly brought in have until 3 October 2026 to comply. These
orders exist because cash moved across a border in small, repeated amounts is hard to see
in ordinary reporting, a pattern set out in structuring.
Related: Structuring (smurfing)
# September 1, 2026
AUSTRAC opens enforcement investigation into Western Union
Australia’s financial intelligence agency has opened an enforcement investigation into
Western Union, one of the world’s largest international payment businesses. AUSTRAC said
on 1 September 2026 that the investigation covers Western Union Financial Services
Australia and the parent company, The Western Union Company, and that it has serious
concerns the firm has failed to manage the money laundering risks attached to high-risk
payment channels, customers and affiliates. AUSTRAC chief executive Brendan Thomas said
payment service providers are internationally recognised as high risk for criminal
exploitation. Nothing is proven at this stage: the regulator says it will decide what
action to take, if any, only once the investigation is complete.
The step follows an external audit of Western Union that AUSTRAC ordered in July 2025
after raising concerns about customer due diligence and late or missing suspicious matter
reports. Investigators will now examine whether the company’s AML program actually
identifies and reduces risk, whether its transaction monitoring can recognise known
laundering patterns, and how far the global head office shapes Australian compliance
decisions. AUSTRAC said Western Union has committed to addressing the audit findings. Why
transaction monitoring and suspicious activity reports carry so much weight is set out in
detection and reporting.
# September 1, 2026
US seizes $560,000 in crypto raised for Hamas and takes over its donation sites
The US Justice Department said on 1 September 2026 that the FBI has seized about $560,000
in cryptocurrency donations intended for Hamas and taken control of the domains and servers
the group used to collect them. According to the department, a group chat on an encrypted
messaging platform pointed supporters to a fundraising website that handed out a rotating
set of donation addresses, so no single wallet stayed in use long enough to become an
obvious target. Three unsealed seizure warrants, dated 25 March 2025, 25 June 2025 and
10 October 2025, covered the funds.
Rotating addresses is a layering move. It spreads incoming money across many receiving
points and forces anyone following the trail to link those points together first. It did
not work here. Investigators used information from human sources alongside blockchain
tracing to identify the addresses, and once the FBI held the fundraising infrastructure it
could intercept donations as they arrived. The department said it also obtained information
about thousands of people who had contacted the group online about donating. Why splitting
funds across many steps so often fails is set out in
layering.
# September 1, 2026
South Korea charges four over crypto sent to a Syrian group and vehicles shipped back
South Korean police disclosed on 1 September 2026 that four Uzbek nationals face charges
under the country’s terrorism financing law over cryptocurrency payments to Katibat Tawhid
wal Jihad, a Syria-based armed group designated by the United Nations. Police say the main
suspect sent 4,267 units of the stablecoin USDT, worth roughly 6.3 million won, in seven
transfers between August 2024 and April 2025. He was arrested in April 2025 after being
placed on an Interpol red notice, and has been indicted and detained. The other three were
investigated without being held.
The return leg is what makes the case unusual. Police allege money from the group came back
out as goods rather than as payments: 11 used cars and two excavators, together worth about
170 million won, bought in Korea and shipped to Syria. Police described it as the first case
they have handled in which funds received from a terrorist group were turned into vehicles
and supplied in return. Nothing is proven while the trial continues. Moving value as traded
goods instead of transfers is the core idea behind
trade-based money laundering.
Related: Trade based money laundering (TBML)
# August 30, 2026
Thailand plans tighter gold market rules to close laundering gaps
Thailand is preparing new rules for its gold market after officials said the trade has
become a route for laundering criminal money. The Finance Ministry is working with the
Bank of Thailand on legislation that would strengthen supervision of the industry and
increase transparency over transactions, Vinit Visessuvanapoom, director-general of the
Fiscal Policy Office and a ministry spokesman, told reporters on 28 August 2026. The plan
covers physical bullion and online trading alike, and the government wants to move gold
dealing toward a fully digital system so authorities can trace the source of the funds
used to buy gold and where the proceeds go afterwards.
Gold attracts launderers for the same reasons it attracts savers: it holds its value, it
sells quickly almost anywhere, and bars change hands without the record a bank transfer
leaves behind. Rather than tax gold transactions for now, the ministry plans to bring the
Gold Traders Association into a national committee that links financial data across the
Finance Ministry and its Fiscal Policy Office, the Anti-Money Laundering Office, the Bank
of Thailand and the Cyber Crime Investigation Bureau. Why high-value goods get used to
carry value that cash cannot carry safely is explained in
trade-based money laundering.
Related: Trade based money laundering (TBML)
# August 28, 2026
AUSTRAC starts issuing legal notices to firms that skipped Australia's new AML rules
Australia’s financial intelligence agency has started compelling businesses to say whether
they fall under the country’s expanded money laundering rules. AUSTRAC said on 28 August
2026 that it has begun issuing section 167 notices to firms that appear to be providing
designated services but have not enrolled with the regulator. The notices require real
estate agents, accountants, lawyers and jewellers to hand over information so AUSTRAC can
determine whether they are covered by the AML/CTF Act and whether they are meeting their
obligations under it.
This is the first visible compliance step since Australia widened the regime on 1 July 2026
to cover sectors including real estate, legal, accounting, conveyancing, trust and company
services, and dealers in precious stones and metals. Those professions sit at the point
where large sums move into property, companies and other assets, which is why regulators
treat them as gatekeepers rather than bystanders. AUSTRAC chief executive Brendan Thomas
said enrolment is a basic legal requirement and that the time for preparation has passed.
Why property purchases attract laundered money, and what the people handling those deals
are expected to notice, is covered in real estate laundering.
Related: Real estate
# August 28, 2026
Houston man gets 95 months for laundering $3.1m of scam money into used-car exports
The Justice Department announced on 28 August 2026 that Oluwasegun Baiyewu, 40, of Houston,
Texas, was sentenced the previous day to 95 months in prison for conspiracy to commit money
laundering. A federal jury convicted him in August 2025. According to court documents,
between about May 2020 and October 2021 Baiyewu led a group of at least six co-conspirators
in the United States and Nigeria that laundered more than $3.1 million taken from victims of
business email compromise, romance and unemployment insurance fraud. Coordinating over
encrypted messaging apps such as WhatsApp, they used the stolen money to buy used and
salvaged cars in the United States, then arranged to ship the vehicles to Nigeria.
In one instance, prosecutors said a renewable energy company in Puerto Rico was tricked into
wiring about $280,000 to accounts the group controlled, and that money went toward car
purchases exported abroad. Turning fraud proceeds into goods and shipping them out moves
value across a border without another suspicious wire, and the paperwork left behind looks
like ordinary commerce. Investigators have traced the same used-car pipeline to West Africa
in earlier cases, described in
trade-based money laundering.
Related: Trade based money laundering (TBML)
# August 28, 2026
US moves to cut off Banque Misr's UAE branches as a money laundering concern
The US Treasury’s FinCEN issued a proposed rule to designate the United Arab Emirates
branches of Banque Misr, an Egyptian state-owned bank, as a primary money laundering
concern under Section 311, which would cut them off from US correspondent banking.
Treasury said the six UAE branches processed roughly $1.8 billion between January 2024 and
June 2026 for 103 companies suspected of belonging to Iranian shadow-banking networks, and
called the branches a critical node for Iran’s access to US dollars.
The action is part of a broader push to isolate Iran economically, announced alongside
sanctions on an Iranian bank manager in Dubai and a Hong Kong front company accused of
laundering for an Iranian exchange house. Section 311 designations are among the most
severe tools in the AML arsenal: rather than fining a bank, they threaten to sever it from
the dollar system entirely, the same mechanism used against Lebanese Canadian Bank in 2011
and Huione Group in 2025. How reporting and correspondent-bank controls feed actions like
this is covered in how detection works.
# August 28, 2026
Two more sentenced over UK's largest criminal cash laundering case
Two more men have been sentenced over a Bradford operation that West Yorkshire Police call
the largest investigation into criminal cash in UK legal history. Baqa Haider, 51, was
jailed for six years and Nathan Rivers, 45, was given a 27 month term suspended for two
years, both at Leeds Crown Court on 28 August 2026, after being convicted of money
laundering at a trial that ended in July. Four other men were sentenced in March 2025 to
terms ranging from ten years to eleven years and eight months, three of them in their
absence after leaving the country.
The money moved through Fowler Oldfield Ltd, a long established scrap jewellery dealer
that had legitimately bought gold for cash. Couriers delivered bags of notes to its Hall
Lane premises, processed at times at a rate of £1.7 million a day. The company banked the
cash and used it to buy high purity gold grain, which was shipped to Dubai under fake
invoices. Police established that more than £200 million passed through the firm’s bank
account between 2014 and 2016. The bank that held it, NatWest, was fined about £265
million in 2021 after a Financial Conduct Authority prosecution over its monitoring of the
account. Turning cash into goods and paperwork is covered in
trade-based money laundering.
Related: Trade based money laundering (TBML) · Cash-intensive front businesses
# August 28, 2026
Five charged with laundering $7.4m of elder scam money through 21 Washington shell companies
Federal prosecutors in Seattle indicted five men on 28 August 2026 for laundering the
proceeds of scams that targeted elderly people across the United States. According to the
indictment, between October 2024 and March 2026 they registered 21 shell companies in
Washington State, opened about 44 bank accounts under fake identities, and rented
commercial mailboxes in the companies’ names. Scammers posing as tech support, government
or bank staff persuaded victims to mail cashiers’ checks and money orders there. The five
are accused of depositing them and wiring the money on to accounts in Hong Kong and
mainland China: more than $7.4 million from at least 77 victims.
Each is charged with conspiracy to commit money laundering, ten counts of money laundering
by concealment, and ten counts by spending. Those indicted:
- Hung Chieh Kuo, 27, of Bellevue
- Tung Wei Yeh, 31, of Bellevue
- Hsin Chien, 31, of Bothell
- You Wei Liew, 26, of Seattle
- Chengpeng Zhang, 40, of Seattle
The charges are allegations, none of the five has been convicted, and trial is scheduled
for 9 November 2026. Paper companies and rented mailboxes give the money a business-shaped
path, so incoming checks resemble customer payments rather than fraud proceeds. How
companies with no real operations get used this way is explained in
shell companies.
Related: Shell companies and nominees
# August 27, 2026
Grain trading firm forfeits $5.2 million in UK laundering and sanctions probe
ENEX Premium Trading Limited, an agricultural trading company registered in St Kitts
and Nevis and owned by Azerbaijani national Nadir Valiyev, agreed to forfeit more than
$5.2 million (about £3.84 million) to settle a UK National Crime Agency civil recovery
investigation into suspected money laundering and sanctions evasion. Reporting in 2024
alleged that Valiyev’s companies had been involved in shipping stolen Ukrainian grain,
and the NCA froze the money with an Account Freezing Order that November. Investigators
traced the funds to ENEX accounts in China that took in tens of millions of pounds from
suspected front companies between July and September 2024, part of a network that moved
money through UK electronic money institutions to be converted into cryptocurrency. Some
of the companies that paid ENEX were later sanctioned by the United States for helping
sell illicit Iranian oil.
The settlement involves no admission of unlawful conduct, and Valiyev denies any
criminal activity. The case shows why investigators treat opaque offshore trading firms
as a warning sign: layers of front companies can make suspect commodity revenue look
like ordinary trade. Read how the corporate layer works in
shell companies.
Related: Shell companies and nominees · Trade based money laundering (TBML)
# August 26, 2026
Tornado Cash retrial of Roman Storm pushed to April 2027
The retrial of Tornado Cash co-founder Roman Storm has been pushed back to April 26, 2027,
with a final pretrial conference set for April 20, 2027, in New York. Prosecutors had
originally sought an October 2026 date for retrying the two counts his August 2025 jury
could not resolve: conspiracy to commit money laundering and conspiracy to violate
sanctions, which together carry roughly 40 years of maximum exposure.
Storm was convicted in August 2025 only of conspiring to operate an unlicensed
money-transmitting business. He has not been sentenced on that count, and his motion for
acquittal, argued in April 2026, remains undecided. The case is the central test of
whether writing and deploying mixer code can support criminal liability, and its outcome
will shape enforcement against privacy tools for years. Background on how mixers work and
the full Tornado Cash saga is on the
mixers, tumblers, and CoinJoin page.
Related: Mixers, tumblers, and CoinJoin
# August 20, 2026
Treasury sanctions 10 people over a courier network flying cash to Hizballah
The US Treasury sanctioned 10 people on 20 August 2026 over a network it says carried cash
by hand to Hizballah. The Office of Foreign Assets Control said the couriers travelled on
ordinary commercial airline flights between Lebanon, Turkey, the UAE and Iran, moving up to
hundreds of millions of dollars between jurisdictions. Treasury named Turkish businessman
Yunus Alper Yilmaz as the manager of the courier network and said he used Turkey-based
exchange houses as business fronts, supplying companies and bank accounts for transfers
connected to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Qods Force. The designations were made
under Executive Order 13224, and Treasury re-designated Hizballah itself under the same
order as an entity directed by the IRGC-QF.
The whole point of a courier network is that the money never touches a bank. Wire transfers
leave records that sanctions screening can read, while a bag carried onto a scheduled flight
leaves a ticket and little else. That is why physical cash smuggling survives alongside
every digital method, and why it is fragile: cash is bulky, couriers are stopped and
searched, and someone still has to convert the notes at the far end. Couriers paired with
exchange houses are the same arrangement described in hawala.
Related: Hawala and informal value transfer
# August 11, 2026
FinCEN makes the domestic ownership-reporting exemption permanent
FinCEN issued a final rule on August 11, 2026, effective August 14, that permanently
adopts the framework it introduced by interim rule in March 2025: US-formed companies and
US persons are exempt from beneficial-ownership reporting under the Corporate Transparency
Act. Only foreign-formed companies registered to do business in the United States must
file, and even they need not report US persons as beneficial owners.
The practical effect is that the US, which enacted the CTA in 2021 to end anonymous
domestic shell companies, now collects ownership data on only a thin slice of entities. A
Supreme Court petition on the statute’s constitutionality remains pending for the fall
2026 term. Why ownership registers matter to investigators, and how the US position now
compares with the UK and Canada, is covered on the
shell companies and nominees page.
Related: Shell companies and nominees
# August 3, 2026
UBS pays a record $125 million FinCEN penalty for broker-dealer AML failures
FinCEN assessed a $125 million civil penalty against UBS Financial Services on August 3,
2026, the largest it has ever imposed on a broker-dealer for Bank Secrecy Act violations.
Between January 2019 and June 2023, the firm failed to monitor more than 50,000 foreign
currency wires worth over $10 billion combined, ran inadequate due diligence on high-risk
customers with ties to Russia and Latin America, and filed hundreds of suspicious activity
reports late.
FinCEN called the conduct recidivist: UBS Financial Services had already paid a $14.5
million penalty in December 2018 for similar program failures. The case extends a pattern
seen in banking enforcement, where the penalty that finally lands is for broken controls
and missing reports rather than for any single laundering scheme. What those reports are
supposed to catch, and why late filings matter, is explained in
reporting: CTRs, SARs, and STRs.
# June 25, 2026
US seizes Huione infrastructure and moves to add H-Pay to the ban
The campaign against Cambodia’s Huione Group, the marketplace at the center of the
pig-butchering scam economy, escalated in late June 2026. On June 23 the Justice
Department announced the seizure of backend infrastructure used by Huione’s
money-laundering services. Two days later FinCEN published a proposed rule to amend its
Section 311 special measure, which has severed Huione from US correspondent banking since
November 2025, so that it also covers H-Pay Service PLC and any defined successor entity.
The successor-entity concept is the notable move. Laundering marketplaces respond to bans
by rebranding, as Garantex did by re-emerging as Grinex after its 2025 takedown, and the
proposed rule is designed to make the designation follow the business rather than the
name. How guarantee marketplaces and dollar stablecoins move scam proceeds is covered on
the stablecoins and OTC brokers page.
Related: Stablecoins and OTC brokers