Money Laundering Bulletin

Operator of 134 websites, ProgressPlay Limited has been ordered to pay UK£1m (US$1.4m) by the UK Gambling Commission for lack of rigour in its assessment of money laundering and terrorist financing risk, and for not putting in place adequate controls accordingly.

The Swiss arm of US bank JP Morgan must pay CHF3 million (US$4.1 million) for control failures that enabled laundering of around CHF174 million (US$217 million) embezzled from the Malaysian sovereign wealth fund 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB).

The Office of the Attorney General of Switzerland (OAG), on 22 August 2025, announced summary penalty orders against Banque J. Safra Sarasin SA - fined CHF3.5 million (US$4.3 million) - and one of its former relationship managers, given a six-month suspended sentence for aggravated money laundering of corrupt payments while working at another bank.

Inspection of four customer files was sufficient for the Dutch National Bank to impose a fine of €2.6 million (US$3 million) on bunq N.V., the online bank, for non-compliance with the Anti-Money Laundering and Anti-Terrorist Financing Act (Wet ter voorkoming van witwassen en terrorismefinanciering - Wwft) between January 2021 and May 2022.

The Epstein affair is resonating loudly Stateside just now, for political reasons but also as it rehearses the too often selective, if not wilful, blindness practised by banks in their dealings with high-value clients. Mikhail Karataev examines warped incentives and spotlights flaws in AML compliance monitoring design and execution.

There is a striking level of scepticism about the effectiveness of anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing (AML/CTF) rules among policymakers, law enforcement agents, private-sector experts and academics alike. Virtually every financial crime conference features the airing of a by-now familiar litany of concerns, such as the dubious value of suspicious activity reporting; the ubiquity of 'tick-box' compliance; and the propensity of regulated businesses to derisk all too readily. Why, then, asks Anton Moiseienko, have our laws, practices and institutions evolved the way they did?

FinCEN, the American financial intelligence unit (FIU), has warned about Chinese money laundering networks (CMLNs) operating in the USA, stressing their alliance with Mexican drug cartels and stating they are mentioned in 137,153 suspicious activity reports (SARs) logged between 2020 and 2024, referencing funds totalling US$312 billion.

Alipay (Europe) Limited S.A, an electronic money institution (EMI), was ordered to pay €214,000 (US$249,385) by the Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier (CSSF) in Luxembourg, on 19 May, for anti-money laundering compliance breaches found during an onsite inspection between 26 June 2023 and 31 January 2024.

In 2024, 6,845 prosecutions, in England & Wales, where money laundering was either the primary or a secondary offence constituted a 36% rise on 2023, with convictions on the same basis up 7%, to 3,756. There were 1,036 convictions for money laundering as a primary offence in 2024, 10% higher than the previous year.