NEWS: Improved risk ratings helped Poland buff its AML framework, says MONEYVAL

Regulatory Watch News

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  Virginia Man Convicted for Crypto Financing Scheme to ISIS

  US Department of Justice

  December 16, 2024

  A jury convicted Mohammed Azharuddin Chhipa, 35, of Springfield, Virginia, on Dec. 13 for charges relating to his efforts to provide material support to the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS), a foreign terrorist organization. According to court records and evidence presented at trial, from at least October 2019 through October 2022, Chhipa collected and sent money to female ISIS members in Syria to benefit ISIS in various ways, including by financing the escape of female ISIS members from prison camps and supporting ISIS fighters.

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  Treasury Sanctions Key Facilitators Behind North Korea’s Illicit Financial Activities and Military Support to Russia

  OFAC

  December 16, 2024

  WASHINGTON — The U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) today sanctioned nine individuals and seven entities that have provided financial and military support to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK).  Also, today, the U.S. Department of State sanctioned three targets related to the DPRK’s ballistic missile program.  These actions reflect the DPRK’s escalating provocation and hostile military posturing that exacerbate global tensions and destabilize regional peace and security.

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  Alleged ₦80.2bn Fraud: Yahaya Bello Apologizes as Court Grants ₦500 Million Bail

  EFCC

  December 16, 2024

  One of the charges read: “That you, Yahaya Adoza Bello, Ali Bello, Dauda Suleiman, and Abdulsalam Hudu (still at large), sometime in February 2016 in Abuja, within the jurisdiction of this Honourable Court, conspired amongst yourselves to convert the total sum of ₦80,246,470,089.88 (Eighty Billion, Two Hundred and Forty-Six Million, Four Hundred and Seventy Thousand and Eighty-Nine Naira, Eighty-Eight Kobo), which sum you reasonably ought to have known forms part of the proceeds of your unlawful activity to wit: criminal breach of trust, thereby committing an offence contrary to Section 18(a) and punishable under Section 15(3) of the Money Laundering (Prohibition) Act, 2011, as amended.”