Elevate your Compliance with Intelect Group. Our monthly round up of news items which are of particular relevance to those businesses regulated for the purposes of Anti-Money Laundering.
We prevent bad things happening to good people.
Cyber Security
District Council Data Breach
A data breach at Stratford-on-Avon District Council highlights the dangers of allowing unfettered access to customer information. Around 79,000 customer email addresses were accessed by a former employee of the council in order to promote their own business.
The council have been keen to point out that the data only contained email addresses and no bank details, names, or addresses. Nonetheless, once in the hands of an unauthorised party, an email can be used for all manner of things aside from marketing purposes.
Due Diligence
Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus
Many years ago I visited Northern Cyprus to deliver a series of training workshops. Also known as KKTC, the area is a self-declared independent part of the Island of Cyprus recognised only by Turkey. You will often see the country of Cyprus being criticised for Due Diligence failures, but rarely do you see mention of KKTC.
The following story piqued my interest and is worth a mention as we often focus on the more well-known and risky jurisdictions.
Seemingly a Turkish drug trafficker worked with an Iranian fraudster to launder money for Iran, using the breakaway state of KKTC as a base. At the same time paying tens of millions of US dollars in hush money to Turkey’s interior minister, Suleyman Soylu, to protect them from investigation. Soylu had previously been sanctioned in the US.
The bribe was facilitated by Hüsnü Falyalı, a brother of Halil, was transferred to Ahmed Nazari Shirehjini, an Iranian accused of orchestrating a large-scale fake investment scam aimed at European citizens.
This case really does have it all, and you can read more at the source link.
Regulatory
More Sanctions on the way
Following the announcement of the death of Putin critic Alexei Navalny and the taking into custody of a Russian-American, ballerina by the Federal Security Service, it is widely thought that the U.S will announce another round of Sanctions against Russia.
Time to ensure your sanctions/PEP monitoring policies are as good as they can be.
