Ksenia Malik, the wife of Tornado Cash creator Alexey Pertsev Wife has lashed out at Dutch authorities for treating her husband like a "dangerous criminal" following his arrest last week. The Dutch Fiscal Information and Investigation Service (FIOD) arrested Pertsev on Aug. 12 over an alleged use of the Ethereum-based privacy tool to launder money and conceal criminal financial flows. Speaking to Cointelegraph, Malik confirmed that Pertsev remains in the hands of Dutch authorities and has not had the chance to contact him since he was put behind bars. “He’s kept in prison as if he were a dangerous criminal,” …

Amid Colombia’s economic growth beat expectations in the second quarter, an official at the country’s tax and customs agency has hinted at some national digital currency plans. Luis Carlos Reyes, the head of the Colombian Tax and Customs National Authority, claimed that the government of newly inaugurated Colombian President Gustavo Petro will seek to create a digital currency to prevent illicit financial activity like tax evasion. Colombia’s digital currency plans are part of the country’s new monetary policy measures aiming to increase transparency of financial transactions, the official said in an interview with the local magazine Semana. According to the …

South Korean banks are being investigated for their role in facilitating $6.5 billion in suspicious overseas remittances which have been tied to companies arbitraging cryptocurrency. According to an Aug. 15 report from Asia Times, the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) ordered an investigation into South Korean banks last month after identifying a significant amount of overseas remittance transactions at the end of June. The investigation found that a majority of the $6.5 billion remitted overseas between Jan 2021 and Jun 2022 came from crypto exchange accounts before being sent out of the country, suggesting some Korean companies are exploiting the "Kimchi …

India’s Directorate of Enforcement (ED) announced Friday that it has frozen the financial accounts of Bengaluru-based financial services company Yellow Tune Technologies, some of which were held by Flipvolt crypto exchange, the Indian branch of Singaporean Vauld. The move is linked to an ongoing investigation into money laundering by China-linked instant loan companies. This is the second time this week the agency has taken action in the crypto sphere in connection with that case. The financial watchdog announced it was freezing Yellow Tune’s bank balances, payment gateway balances and balances in the Flipvolt cryptocurrency exchange for a total of 3.7 …

Authorities in the Netherlands have arrested a developer that is suspected to be involved in money laundering through the crypto mixing service Tornado Cash. The Fiscal Information and Investigation Service (FIOD), an agency in the Netherlands responsible for investigating financial crimes, officially announced on Friday an arrest of a 29-year-old man in Amsterdam. The man has allegedly been involved in facilitating criminal financial flows and money laundering through the decentralized Ethereum mixer Tornado Cash, the authority said. The FIOD pointed out that it doesn’t rule out multiple arrests in the case, noting that its Financial Advanced Cyber Team (FACT) launched …

Cross-chain bridges have been the target of more than a few hacks this year, but new data from blockchain analytics provider Elliptic alleges one has been used to launder over half a billion dollars in ill-gotten crypto assets. According to an Aug. 10 report, crypto bridge RenBridge has facilitated the laundering of at least $540 million in proceeds of crime since 2020 through a process known as chain hopping — converting one form of cryptocurrency into another and moving it across multiple blockchains. Elliptic said that decentralized cross-chain bridges provide “an unregulated alternative to exchanges for transferring value between blockchains.” …

Panama’s President Laurentino Cortizo has partially vetoed Bill No. 697, dubbed the “crypto bill,” saying it requires more work to better fit Panama’s financial regulations. President Cortizo previously warned in May he wouldn’t sign the bill unless it included additional Anti-Money Laundering (AML) rules after Panama’s National Assembly passed the crypto bill in late April 2022. Local media outlet La Prenda obtained a copy of the 32-page veto, reporting the president wrote it’s “imperative” the cryptocurrency laws conform to new regulations recommended by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) outlining “fiscal transparency and prevention of money laundering.” President Cortizo has …

Benjamin Delo, co-founder of cryptocurrency exchange BitMEX, has been sentenced to 30 months probation for violating the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA), which is an Anti-Money Laundering (AML) law. The sentence, handed down at a federal court in New York on Wednesday, follows his guilty plea to charges in February of “willfully failing to establish, implement and maintain an Anti-Money Laundering (AML) program” in his role at BitMEX. Prosecutors had argued Delo should serve a year in prison or at least receive a two-year probation and six months of home detention, as was given to former CEO Arthur Hayes in May. …

The funny thing about many of the absolutely insane things happening in the world today is that from a certain perspective, they actually make perfect sense. Take the famous brands buying metaverse real estate, for example. At first glance, it makes no sense at all. At second glance, assuming the user base of the respective projects grows over time, it’s like buying an ad banner on a website, just at a higher markup. Considering how many headlines you get on the purchase, the purchase becomes quite sensible even if you do nothing with your plot of virtual land. It’s quite …

Japan’s Justice Ministry is reportedly considering a revision of an asset seizure law relating to organized crime to include a stipulation that crypto can be commandeered in such instances. If the reports are found to be true, a potential revision of the Act on Punishment of Organized Crimes and Control of Proceeds of Crime (1999) would enable law enforcement officers and courts to take control of crypto assets used in criminal activity such as money laundering. According to reports from local media outlets such as the Yomiuri Shimbun on Saturday, the Justice Ministry will first need to engage in talks …

Bringing closure to the long-awaited judgment related to the money laundering activities over the BitMEX crypto exchange, one of the four federal district courthouses in New York reportedly sentenced two-year probation and six months of home detention to founder and ex-CEO Arthur Hayes. Arthur Hayes, along with the other BitMEX co-founders Benjamin Delo and Samuel Reed, and the company’s first non-employee Gregory Dwyer, pleaded guilty to the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) violations on Feb 24, admitting to “willfully failing to establish, implement, and maintain an anti-money laundering (“AML”) program at BitMEX.” Pleading guilty to supporting money laundering is a punishable …

The United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is seeking to hire more people to focus on digital assets, raising the number of personnel charged with safeguarding investors in cryptocurrency markets almost twofold. The SEC's Cyber Unit, which comprises the Crypto Assets and Cyber team, is expected to hire 20 new people to increase the overall force to 50 dedicated positions, as reported by Cointelegraph on May 3. This development comes as the regulatory body attempts to keep up with the rise in the popularity of virtual assets. The SEC's decision to expand its cryptocurrency unit has been praised by …