The AML Brief

Financial crimes intelligence for AML, KYC, and fraud professionals.

Sep 8, 2026

•

5 min read

Standard Chartered Paid $667 Million to Stop Laundering Iranian Money. It Didn't Stop.

A monitor was already inside the bank when the same conduct kept running through Dubai. Seven years and $1.1 billion later, regulators finally caught up to what they'd already been told to watch for.

Sep 1, 2026

•

6 min read

Credit Suisse's Money Laundering Conviction Came Down to One Employee. When She Died, So Did the Case.

Switzerland convicted a major bank of laundering cartel drug money in a historic first. The conviction needed her guilt to survive an appeal. It didn't.

Aug 25, 2026

•

5 min read

A Dutch Court Ordered ING's Former CEO Prosecuted. It Still Took Prosecutors Five Years to Fail.

The bank paid €775 million and admitted nothing. The case against the man running it collapsed for a different reason entirely.

Aug 18, 2026

•

5 min read

Wachovia's $160 Million Fine Came Down to One Person Being Told to Mind His Own Business.

The bank's own money laundering officer flagged the cartel accounts in 2005. A colleague told him to drop it.

Aug 11, 2026

•

5 min read

BNP Paribas Paid $8.9 Billion. Its Own Compliance Staff Weren't in the Dark.

Wire stripping ran for eight years with legal and compliance informed the whole time. The largest sanctions settlement in history wasn't a detection failure.

Aug 4, 2026

•

4 min read

The UK's first-ever criminal AML conviction of a bank came down to a monitoring system that couldn't tell cash from cheques.

£365 million moved through an account expected to see £15 million a year, in cash, some of it delivered in bin bags.