Connecting the dots in RegTech | 2024 #16
Good morning, everybody!
Join us today as we explore the latest developments in the financial crime scene, from Singapore's historic money laundering scandal to organized crime infiltrating Europe's legal economy.
? Singapore Tightens Money Laundering Rules After $2.2bn Scandal
Singapore has begun the trials of Chinese criminals complicit in the country's biggest money laundering scandal that saw billions of dollars of criminal assets enter the economy. Legislators are promising stricter regulations while trying to maintain incentives for legitimate funds to flow into the country.
?? Worldcoin Enhances Privacy Measures and Age Verification, Allows Users to Unverify World ID
Worldcoin, the controversial blockchain biometric project of OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, is slowly making peace with regulatory scrutiny, announcing the right of users to unverify their identities and have their data erased.
?? Menace to society: Criminal gangs in Europe are infiltrating the legal world, Europol says
Organized crime is more intertwined with Europe's legitimate economy than one would have expected, as shown by a Europol report which highlights how criminal gangs use ordinary businesses as a fascade to infiltrate the legal economy to hide their activities and launder their criminal profits.
?? Video game currencies caught up in the crossfire of money laundering
After the decentralized and anonymous world of crypto, videogames might become the next target for regulatory scrutiny as U.S. governmental agency exposes how in-game currencies and other assets can be used for hiding the proceeds of criminal activities.
?? SPONSORED CONTENT
?? NEWS HIGHLIGHT
Criminal networks in the European Union are penetrating legal businesses across the 27-nation bloc and rely heavily on corruption to develop their activities. That's the bleak picture emerging from a report published Friday by the EU crime agency.
Europol has identified 821 particularly threatening criminal networks with more than 25,000 members in the bloc.
According to the agency, 86% of those networks are able to infiltrate the legal economy to hide their activities and launder their criminal profits.
领英推荐
?? ARTICLE
Worldcoin, the digital identity and cryptocurrency project built by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, is adding new features to increase the protection of personal data and improve age verification.
On April 9, Worldcoin announced two updates: The ability to unverify World IDs via permanent iris code deletion and in-person age verification checks.
World ID holders can now unverify their World ID, which serves as a digital passport that verifies an individual’s humanness using “orbs,” which are devices that scan users’ eyeballs to confirm that they are real humans.
A Singaporean court has begun handing out sentences in a sensational case, which saw 10 Chinese nationals charged for laundering $2.2bn (￡1.8bn) earned from criminal activities abroad.
The scandal embroiled multiple banks, property agents, precious metal traders and a top golf club. It led to extensive raids in some of the most affluent neighbourhoods, where police seized billions in cash and assets. The lurid details have gripped Singaporeans - among the seized assets were 152 properties, 62 vehicles, shelves of luxury bags and watches, hundreds of pieces of jewellery and thousands of bottles of alcohol.
??INSIGHTS
Money laundering is being facilitated by video game currency conversions, the United States Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has warned.
The organisation, which is the independent agency of the US government responsible for consumer protection in the financial sector, said the ability to convert gaming assets to fiat currency or crypto-assets “has led to a proliferation of money laundering and fraud on gaming platforms”.
NOW, ON TO THE SUMMARY OF LAST WEEK'S?NEWS
?? REGTECH HIGHLIGHTS
?? Dutch cities consider biometric checks to stop rising passport, ID fraud.
?? The Federal Government of Nigeria has revealed plans to introduce a payment-integrated ID card.
?? Wirecard shareholders sue EY over alleged asset stripping in Germany.