Our monthly round up of news items which help businesses understand the risks around AML and more
Criminals lose, compliance wins, the smarter way to safeguard your business.
Cyber Security
Can you prove who you are? Trust becomes the new cyber battleground
Experian’s newly published 2027 Data Breach Industry Forecast, now in its 14th year, warns of a looming “crisis of trust”. It is driven by the convergence of artificial intelligence, identity fraud, data breaches and digital deception.
Criminals now have both vast stores of stolen personal data and AI tools capable of turning it into highly convincing false identities. As a result, businesses may find it harder than ever to verify who they are dealing with online. Michael Bruemmer, Experian’s Vice President of Global Data Breach Resolution, puts it plainly: “proving authenticity is just as important as protecting data.”
The forecast sets out four predictions:
• “Proof of being human” becomes the hottest new market, as organisations look for ways to verify authenticity in an AI-driven world.
• “Digital doppelgängers” rise, meaning sophisticated, convincing profiles of real individuals built by criminals.
• Consumers “fight fire with fire”, adopting new ways to protect their own identities.
• Breach notifications need a reset, because growing scepticism towards digital communications means people may no longer trust genuine alerts.
For AML and KYC teams, this goes to the heart of customer due diligence. A document check or a selfie match may no longer be enough when a fraudster can assemble a synthetic identity from real breached data and AI-generated imagery. The response is layered, evidence-led verification:
Corroborate identity against independent sources.
Test whether a person’s digital footprint and history are consistent.
Treat a too-perfect profile with as much suspicion as a thin one.
EDD-Pro supports this approach by bringing together corporate records, adverse media and open-source checks, so investigators can test whether a subject’s story truly holds together.
Organised Crime
From scam compounds to global crime businesses
Interpol has warned that online investment fraud, cryptocurrency scams and romance fraud are now run by well-funded syndicates operating at a global scale. Many use Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar as bases to target victims around the world.
Interpol’s 2026 assessment says scam centres now involve hundreds of thousands of people, many of them trafficked and forced to commit fraud. It also finds that AI-enhanced fraud is 4.5 times more profitable than traditional methods. Losses can reach hundreds of thousands or even millions of euros a day. Some governments now treat organised online fraud as a national security threat.
The overlap between crimes matters. These networks combine fraud, human trafficking, cybercrime and, increasingly, specialist money-laundering groups. Money moves through cryptocurrency, international banking channels and financial infrastructure spread across several jurisdictions. Interpol has also found terrorist groups in parts of Africa using crypto-based scams as a source of funding.
Since 2024, Interpol has supported more than 1,500 transnational fraud cases involving USD 1.1 billion in lost assets, and fraud-related notices and diffusions have risen by 54 per cent.
For AML and due diligence professionals, the lesson is that scam proceeds are not “just fraud”. They are the proceeds of organised crime and often of trafficking. Firms should watch for:
• Mule accounts and sudden patterns of inbound payments.
• Payment flows linked to high-risk Southeast Asian jurisdictions.
• Counterparties whose ownership or online footprint does not add up.
Tools such as EDD-Pro can help investigators quickly map beneficial ownership, adverse media and jurisdictional risk, and flag connections to known scam hubs before a relationship becomes a liability.
Regulatory
EU puts 18 member states on notice over beneficial ownership access
According to FinCrime Central, the Commission has sent letters of formal notice to 18 member states:
The states failed to notify full transposition of Articles 11, 12, 13 and 15 of Directive (EU) 2024/1640, part of the EU’s new AML package. The deadline was 10 July 2026. The four provisions govern access to central beneficial ownership registers for competent authorities, self-regulatory bodies, obliged entities and people with a legitimate interest.
The governments now have two months to respond before the Commission can escalate. Most other provisions of the directive fall due in July 2027, and Article 18 follows in 2029.
The notices do not impose fines, and they do not suggest that any firm or register entry is at fault. They are still a significant signal. Access to beneficial ownership registers across Europe has been patchy since the Court of Justice’s 2022 ruling ended general public access. These proceedings show how uneven the rebuilding of lawful access for obliged entities and legitimate-interest users has been.
Several of the countries named are major financial and corporate-structuring centres, where knowing who really owns and controls a company matters most.
For compliance teams, the practical message is clear. Register gaps do not reduce your customer due diligence obligations, and a register extract should never be the only evidence of ownership. Where access is limited, delayed or inconsistent:
• Corroborate ownership with corporate filings, shareholder documents, adverse media and open-source research.
• Record clearly how ownership and control were verified.
EDD-Pro helps investigators build that multi-source view of beneficial ownership across jurisdictions, so decisions stay defensible even where official registers fall short.
Comment – Cases like this show why strong AML controls, robust monitoring and effective enhanced due diligence are essential. Find out how EDD-Pro can help your team identify risk earlier, streamline investigations and keep your compliance process audit-ready.
