MEXICO CARTELS: New FinCEN alert forces California and Texas money service businesses (MSBs) to notify all cash transactions from $200

Regulatory Watch News

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  Gold bullion fraudsters stripped of $8.7 million in assets

  Australia Federal Police

  May 8, 2025

  Two Sydney-based leaders of an Australian criminal syndicate have been stripped of more than $8.7 million in assets for their roles in an elaborate gold bullion GST fraud. Orders made by the Supreme Court of New South Wales resulted in those assets being forfeited to the Commonwealth. It followed a complex, decade-long AFP-led Criminal Assets Confiscation Taskforce (CACT) investigation, codenamed Operation Nosean. The CACT brings together the resources and expertise of the AFP, Australian Border Force (ABF), Australian Taxation Office (ATO), Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission (ACIC) and AUSTRAC.

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  EFCC Arrests Three Suspects Behind Q-net Scam

  EFCC

  May 6, 2025

  Operatives of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, have nabbed three suspected fraudsters linked with Q-net scam in the country. Operating under the name, Mighty Infinity Millionaire Limited, the trio falsely claimed to be representatives of Q-net, a global e-commerce and direct selling company. While Q-net has since denied any link with the suspects and their activities, investigations further revealed that the suspects were equally running a fraudulent university training in pavilions and under trees, offering fake Bachelor of Science degrees in Medicine, Nursing, Cybersecurity, Computer Studies, and Geology, among others with a false claim of affiliation with Quest International University, Malaysia.

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  Treasury Sanctions Burma Warlord and Militia Tied to Cyber Scam Operations

  OFAC

  May 5, 2025

  WASHINGTON — Today, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned the Karen National Army (KNA), a militia group in Burma, as a transnational criminal organization, along with the group’s leader Saw Chit Thu, and his two sons, Saw Htoo Eh Moo and Saw Chit Chit, for their role in facilitating cyber scams that harm U.S. citizens, human trafficking, and cross-border smuggling.  The KNA-controlled region, located on the Thai-Burmese border, is home to multiple cyber scam syndicates, and the KNA has benefitted from its connection to Burma’s military in its criminal operations.  Although statistics vary, American victims of cyber scams like the ones emanating from Burma have collectively lost billions of dollars over the last three years.