Please Be Informed...

After a break, the return of e-mail sextortion threats

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It's been months since we last had a threat of this type. But where there is one cockroach, there are usually many so we might expect that another wave of such spam-scams is happening.

Bitcoin wallet: 1L6XxPRuLJdr6JCqw8dwNUm1wFLisrGREL

FCRO Subsection:

Financial Crime News

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25% discount on Financial Crime Risk and Compliance Training

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16 February: This offer has now expired.

BIScom Subsection:

Management

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Power of the people or market abuse? Caution: the Gamestock ploy is not for everyone.

The best thing about the Gamestock story is that a short-seller tried to manipulate the market by doing deals then trying to talk down the stock. The market turned the other way, leaving the short seller out an estimated 30% of their entire funds under management.

BIScom Subsection:

Retail Securities

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Australian director banned for phoenix activity

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Hayley Joan Street of Richmond, Victoria has been disqualified from managing corporations for four years following her involvement in two failed companies.

CoNet Section:

Insolvency

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Dear Uncle Bert and Auntie Gert

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Publication:

Dear Uncle Bert and Auntie Gert

Classification:

relationships

Wed, 20/01/2021 - 04:07

Art Lover writes:

I'm a long time reader and a first time writer. I'm desperate. I like art. A lot. I don't like sports. At all. I like science but I'm rubbish at it. I don't like history, geography and English Lit but I'm good at them. I'm good at English grammar and Composition and I quite like that. I'm rubbish at maths and I don't like it.

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Norwegian shipping company pleads guilty to participation in a cartel.

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Norwegian-based, global, shipping company Wallenius Wilhelmsen Ocean AS (WWO) has pleaded guilty in the Australian Federal Court to criminal cartel conduct in a prosecution brought by the Australia on evidence obtained by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission.

CoNet Section:

Anti-Competitive Practices

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Elon Musk is wrong: Signal is not the solution to privacy issues.

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One of the biggest reasons for migrating away from WhatsApp is privacy. It's been a problem ever since WhatsApp was launched. Indeed, I discussed it with the founders when it was new, ish, and they said that they had deliberately designed the system to create visibility between users. When I pointed out that a combination of various features compromised personal security, that was not something that concerned them... anyone can get your phone number, they said.

CoNet Section:

IT & Communications

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Australian liquidator suspended, further conditions applied in liew of cancellation of registration

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The Australian Administrative Appeals Tribunal, on the joint application of the parties, agreed to replace an order cancelling a liquidator's licence and replace it with a period of suspension and a further period during which he must not act as sole liquidator.

CoNet Section:

Insolvency

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Internet registrars and ICANN enable coronavirus fraud

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In 2015, I wrote "Cleaning up the 'Net." It was an action plan to reduce incidence of financial and other crime committed over the internet.

One of the main principles of the book is that those that provide services to internet users - including domain name registrars and others - were enabling and profiting from crime.

Is 2021 the year when someone listens and starts to take seriously the ease with which criminals can, for example, register domain names that even the most basic know-your-customer would establish is more likely than not to be used for some improper purpose?

On the weekend when, at last, the USA gets laws to require at least some degree of declaration of the ownership of companies, is there an appetite to tackle this even bigger problem?

Hint: it's not...

FCRO Subsection:

Financial Crime News

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BitGo and sanctions: USA's OFAC applies penalty to crypto-services business

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The United States' Office of Foreign Asset Control has issued a penalty to a company that provides "security and scalability platforms for digital assets and offers non-custodial secure digital wallet management services." The case is interesting because it establishes that, for sanctions purposes, the internet is not a borderless world. It also demonstrates issues with Know Your Customer processes in non-face-to-face business - and the fact that, you know, people lie.

It raises serious questions for those who deliver services via the internet and which have any US footprint.

Publication:

Sanctions In Action

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USA's SEC obtains emergency asset freeze, charges crypto fund manager with fraud

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This press release from the USA's Securities and Investment Commission is about an old-fashioned (alleged) fund management fraud in which crypto-assets were the hook by which investors were encouraged to put money into a scheme which was not, says the SEC, what the promoters said it was.

BIScom Subsection:

Cryptocurrencies and cryptoassets

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The cycle of fraud

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We haven't seen this one for a while, or rather we've not seen it in this format.

The simplest and oldest 419 scam is back in time for Christmas.

And once more, Google is complicit. Look at the "reply to" address. How is not possible that they are not required to identify and block things such as this? Oh, yes. They say "we are google. We are big. You can bog off."

FCRO Subsection:

Financial Crime News

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Zimbabwe's in trouble again.

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The news (Al Jazeera) that Zimbabwe's sortie into restoring its own currency is in crisis is extremely unwelcome.

Just as we saw in Russia in and about 1997 there is rampant inflation (now reaching 800%) and the local currency being eschewed in favour of US dollar bank notes.

Strict controls are now being imposed on so-called peer-to-peer payment systems.

FCRO Subsection:

Learning

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Australia's ASIC freezes property development company

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The Australian Securities and Investment Commission has alleged that unlicensed financial advice is being given in relation to the development of property by a company headquartered in Perth and that it relates to an unlicensed investment scheme. The facts as set out by ASIC imply other issues, too. ASIC has frozen the assets of Monica Kaur, MKS Property Investments/Developments Pty Ltd (MKS Property), Paradise Property Group Pty Ltd (Paradise Property) as well as against Sadu Singh, Melvin Paul Singh and Stephanie Lee. All but Lee have been banned from leaving Australia.

BIScom Subsection:

Enforcement

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Loan Fraud - timed for those in need of extra money at Christmas.

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"Callum Reece akhil"@vitelglobal.com is an interesting e-mail address.

But this is who an offer for loans purportedly comes from.

The reply-to address is akhil@vitelglobal.com - which makes the "from" address all the more strange and suggests that someone's e-mail account has been hijacked. Will the real Callum Reece please stand up?

BIScom Subsection:

Consumer finance

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