Washington, D.C. – United States Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) announced an expanded coalition of Senate support for the bipartisan Digital Asset Anti-Money Laundering Act, which would mitigate the illicit finance risks that crypto poses by closing loopholes and bringing the digital asset ecosystem into greater compliance with the anti-money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism (AMF/CFT) frameworks that govern much of the financial system.

The encrypted trading platform FixedFloat officially stated that after three days of coordinated efforts by the team, it successfully thwarted money laundering attempts related to the North Korean hacker group Lazarus Group. The total amount of frozen funds is approximately 2 million US dollars.

Dato' Sri Azam Baki, the Chief Commissioner of the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission, pointed out that donating to charities, hiding wealth through agents and political funding, has been identified as one of the increasingly rampant money laundering methods in the country. The Anti-Corruption Commission has also discovered new mediums for money laundering, including the use of cryptocurrencies, underground transactions, cross-border financial institutions, and offshore financial services. The complexity of money laundering methods has made it more difficult and challenging for law enforcement agencies to recover funds.

According to a report by Chainalysis, North Korean state-affiliated hacking groups have stolen over $340 million worth of cryptocurrency from exchanges and web3 apps this year. This adds to the record-breaking $1.6 billion in North Korea-linked hacks from 2022. Cybercrime has become a significant source of revenue for North Korea's heavily sanctioned economy, with an estimated 30% of cryptocurrency hacks this year linked to the regime.

Senator Elizabeth Warren has expanded her coalition to tackle the illicit use of cryptocurrency in money laundering, drug trafficking, and sanctions evasion. Nine other Senators have joined her Digital Asset Anti-Money Laundering Act, including Senators Gary Peters and Dick Durbin. The bill has also received endorsements from various institutions.

Faruk Fatih Özer, along with his sister and brother, have been sentenced to over 11,000 years in prison and a fine of $5 million for their involvement in the collapse of Thodex, one of Turkey's largest crypto exchanges. The exchange suddenly went offline in April 2021, leaving over 400,000 members without access to $2 billion in cryptocurrencies.

Hong Kong police have arrested 11 people in the past few days for money laundering and fraud. They have used at least 52 bank accounts to launder criminal proceeds in the past six months, involving more than HKD 124 million. They have successfully dismantled a criminal group controlled by the triad.

On August 25th, Tornado Cash co-founder Roman Storm's lawyer Brian Klein stated that his client Roman Storm has been released on bail. Klein expressed disappointment in the prosecutor's charges against Roman Storm for his involvement in developing software.

The largest money laundering case in recent years was uncovered in Singapore, and 10 people, including the founder of Xinbao Investment, Su Baolin, were arrested. It is reported that the 10 foreign nationals arrested in this case are suspected of forging documents and money laundering, with a total value of about 1 billion yuan involved, and it is preliminarily determined that all 10 people are originally from Fujian Province, China.

An article in the 12th edition of the Economic Daily pointed out that virtual currencies have the characteristics of decentralization, anonymity, global exchangeability, and convenient transactions. Money laundering techniques are more concealed and difficult to trace, opening up new channels for money laundering crimes. The difficulty of collecting evidence and retrieving it is exacerbated by multiple conversions between different trading platforms and frequent exchanges between virtual and fiat currencies.