On 27 November 2025, the Austrian Financial Market Authority (FMA) granted KuCoin EU Exchange GmbH a a licence as a crypto-asset service provider (CASP) under the MiCA regime for CASPs (Title V MiCA). With this single administrative act, KuCoin obtains EU-wide passporting rights: from Vienna, it can now offer regulated
The big announcement Last week, nine European banks—including ING, UniCredit, Danske Bank, SEB, KBC, CaixaBank, Raiffeisen Bank International, DekaBank, and Banca Sella—announced their intention to issue a euro-denominated stablecoin by 2026 jointly. Billed as a pan-European public–private initiative, this move is positioned as a strategic response to the increasing dominance
When Europe’s payment institutions (PIs) and electronic-money institutions (EMIs) still show structural AML/CFT weaknesses, it’s reckless to assume stablecoin issuers—often EMIs themselves—will perform better. Any bank offering operating, reserve or settlement accounts to a fiat-backed stablecoin issuer faces two rails (fiat + on-chain). Both must be managed to AML standards—or
Executive Summary An explosive whistleblower lawsuit reveals how Ernst & Young (EY) systematically enabled one of the largest money laundering operations in history, providing audit cover for a $100 billion criminal network operating through casino companies linked to Chinese organized crime syndicates. The case exposes how EY’s pattern of prioritizing
The European Funds Recovery Initiative (EFRI) has issued a formal letter to the Malta Financial Services Authority (MFSA)—with a copy to the European Banking Authority (EBA)—urging the regulator to urgently reassess the Electronic Money Institution (EMI) licence it granted to StablR Ltd. in June 2024. Background: a €200 million fraud story
AMLA launches with big promises! As of 1 July 2025, the Authority for Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism (AMLA) has opened its doors in Frankfurt am Main, the seat fixed in the founding Regulation (EU) 2024/1620. Its first chair, Bruna Szega, and an executive board drawn from
It is about time for the Dutch authorities to support the victims of the Wolf of Sofia! Thousands of victims of the fraudulent websites operated by the Wolf of Sofia (Xtraderfx, Safemarkets, OptionStarsGlobal, Golden Markets) and Uwe Lenhoff (Option888, Xmarkets, Zoomtrader, Tradovest, Tradeinvest90) continue to suffer severe consequences from the
A huge fine turns out to be a pure joke! København Andelskasse (now FS Finans VI A/S), which was heavily involved in facilitating cybercrime activities from 2016 to July 2018, has been fined DKK 794 million (€103 million) for laundering billions on behalf of international cybercriminal organisations. While this substantial
In recent years, several high-profile cases in the Netherlands have raised serious doubts about whether justice is applied equally to all. From cryptocurrency developers to board members of banks and payment companies, these cases reveal a troubling pattern: wealth and influence often seem to provide a shield, prompting many to
Although financial institutions worldwide step up their efforts in fighting criminals from using their systems for money laundering, more than 99% of money laundering proceeds remain in the hands of criminal gangs. It’s not just the massive amounts of money that go unseized that’s troubling (UNODC estimates that between two
