Financial Crime Weekly Episode 284

Welcome to episode 284 of the Financial Crime Weekly Podcast. I am Chris Kirkbride. In this episode, OFSI has established a "presumption of denial" policy for licence applications involving five designated Iranian banks, while OFAC has consolidated its Sanctions Penalty Regulations and updated Syria-related rules. On money laundering, a FCA multi-firm review has urged institutions to strengthen defences against multi-account money mule networks. On fraud enforcement, US federal and state actions secured convictions and indictments involving multi-state tax fraud, a business email compromise proceeds forfeiture, and a $12.2 million stolen Treasury cheque scheme. In broader financial crime, the NCA has launched its 2026 Strategic Assessment, highlighting rising online fraud, crypto laundering, and proposed police reforms. Finally, on cybercrime, the European Supervisory Authorities (ESAs) have warned of operational vulnerabilities stemming from AI-driven cyber threats, quantum computing risk, and dependencies on non-EEA technology service providers.

A transcript of this podcast, with links to the stories, will be available at www.crimes.financial.

The photograph on the podcast cover art is by Sora Shimazaki at Pexels, and the stinger sample between each news section is ‘Ben Logo 1’ by BenKirb from Pixabay.