Federal cases against attorneys, accountants and other professionals suspected of washing illicit proceeds have risen by roughly 30 percent in the year since the FBI began actively targeting third-party facilitators, according to the head of the bureau's money laundering unit.
There are all those sayings about how the optimist and the pessimist encounter the world, starting with the old "glass half-full or half-empty" adage. The 33rd Cambridge International Symposium on Economic Crime offered fodder aplenty for both world views earlier this month in the United Kingdom.
The U.S. Justice Department's use of deferred prosecution agreements has been effective though often misunderstood, according to Jonathan E. Lopez, a former deputy chief of the department's Money Laundering and Bank Integrity Unit who oversaw investigations into HSBC and MoneyGram.
For all of the rhetoric to the contrary, virtual currencies may turn out to be a tempest in a teapot, at least for money laundering investigators, according to Jeffrey Robinson, author of "Bitcon: The Naked Truth About Bitcoin."
As federal investigators continue to pursue illicit online vendors in the wake of its high-profile prosecution of Silk Road, they will face two hurdles: evolving data-encryption and an atomized black market.
For all of the legitimate concerns and overheated rhetoric about the rise of crypto-currencies, the biggest problem for Bitcoin may be one seldom discussed by critics: its abuse by tax dodgers.
New York should require some digital currency companies to collect and periodically verify customer information to deter financial criminals, Manhattan's district attorney told state regulators Wednesday.
With greater regulatory clarity, U.S. banks would embrace the digital currency companies they currently turn away due to compliance concerns, Bitcoin investors told New York State regulatory officials Tuesday.
A well-known advocate of digital currencies and the head of a Bitcoin exchange house facilitated over $1 million in transactions tied to an online black market, federal prosecutors said Monday.
The indictment Wednesday of an online black market for narcotics and weapons vendors could further hamper proponents of a growing digital currency in the eyes of bank compliance officers.
Nearly all digital coins studied by researchers at the University of California in San Diego were used to purchase goods from a black market Web site selling illicit goods, a recent study found.
When FinCEN issued its innocuously entitled guidance, "Application of FinCEN's Regulations to Persons Administering, Exchanging, or Using Virtual Currencies" in March, an already speculative currency may have received its death blow.
The U.S. Justice Department is expected to decide within the fiscal year whether prosecutors can bring charges against entities using a controversial virtual currency, an FBI official said Thursday.