NEWS: US preferred hub for corrupt financial transactions; Dubai, Hong Kong replace Panama as OCG centres, claims UK university report

Regulatory Watch News

• 

  Treasury Targets Key Actors in Sanctions Evasion Scheme to Support Russia and North Korea

  OFAC

  September 19, 2024

  DPRK and Russian Financial Entities Orchestrated Illicit Payment Mechanisms

  WASHINGTON — Today, the Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) designated a network of five entities and one individual—based in Russia and in the Russia-occupied Georgian region of South Ossetia—that have enabled and supported ongoing efforts to establish illicit payment mechanisms between Russia and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK). Today’s action holds accountable parties that have assisted DPRK and Russian sanctions evasion and demonstrates Treasury’s commitment to exposing and disrupting networks that facilitate the funding of the DPRK’s unlawful weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and ballistic missile programs and support Russia’s illegal war against Ukraine.

• 

  SC Charges Former Investment Banker with Securities Fraud and Unlicensed Capital Market Activities

  Securities Commission Malaysia

  September 19, 2024

  The Securities Commission Malaysia (SC) yesterday charged Ruwan Amaresh Shaun Ponniah (Ruwan) at the Kuala Lumpur Sessions Court for defrauding investors into depositing monies totaling RM201,000 for shares investments.

  The SC also charged Ruwan for an offense relating to unlicensed capital market activities. Ruwan, 35, was an associate director of Debt Capital Markets at CIMB Investment Bank when the offences took place between October 2018 and June 2020. Ruwan faced 10 charges under section 179(b) of the Capital Markets and Services Act 2007 (CMSA) for falsely representing to seven individuals that he would invest their monies in shares listed on the Malaysian and foreign stock exchanges. If convicted, Ruwan faces a jail term not exceeding 10 years and a fine of not less than RM1 million.

• 

  Operation Kraken-Dathomir: Victorian man charged over seizure of 58kg cannabis and $395k in illicit cash

  Australia Federal Police

  September 19, 2024

  The AFP have charged a Victorian man with connections to Albanian organised crime, after allegedly trafficking $1.2 million dollars’ worth of cannabis between Victoria and New South Wales and dealing with illicit cash, as a result of intelligence from the AFP’s disruption to a major encrypted communications platform. The Hillside man, 36, was identified during AFP-led Operation KRAKEN, as an alleged reseller of an encrypted criminal communications (ECC) device ‘Ghost’ used to coordinate secret communications between members of an Albanian organised criminal syndicate.