2021: The People and Key Events of A Year in Review; Europe’s AML Action plan finally lands, FATF Grey Lists plus scandals galore

Regulatory Watch News

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  850 years in jail for criminals and £70m-worth of drugs seized by specialist Merseyside team

  National Crime Agency

  July 29, 2026

  More than 100 criminals linked to drug and gun crime in Merseyside have been jailed as a result of investigations by a specialist team formed in 2021. One-hundred-and-eight criminals are serving 851 years in prison for crimes including importing drugs, supplying guns and laundering money linked to serious and organised crime. Officers from Merseyside Organised Crime Partnership (OCP) have seized cocaine, heroin, cannabis and ketamine worth up to £70m.

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  EU steps up the fight against fraud to better protect taxpayers’ money

  OLAF

  July 28, 2026

  The European Commission today published its 2025 Annual Report on the Protection of the European Union's Financial Interests (PIF Report), introducing for the first time a comprehensive assessment of the entire anti-fraud cycle and setting out the next steps to strengthen the protection of the EU budget against fraud and corruption. The report marks a significant evolution in how the European Union measures its efforts to safeguard public funds. Rather than focusing primarily on fraud detection, it assesses every stage of the anti-fraud cycle, from prevention and early detection to investigation, prosecution, recovery and reporting. By bringing together information from the European Commission, Member States, OLAF and the European Public Prosecutor's Office (EPPO), the report provides the most comprehensive overview to date of how the EU protects taxpayers' money.

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  SFC reprimands and fines Luk Fook Securities (HK) Limited $2.1 million for inadequate cybersecurity control to fend off cyberattack

  Securities and Futures Commission

  July 28, 2026

  The Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) has reprimanded and fined Luk Fook Securities (HK) Limited (LFSHK) $2.1 million for failing to implement adequate and effective cybersecurity control measures, which might have contributed to its failure to withstand a ransomware attack and led to a delay of approximately three weeks in fully recovering its systems from the cyberattack. The disruption from the 19 September 2022 ransomware attack on LFSHK’s critical IT infrastructure was sweeping, affecting file servers, domain controllers, email servers, trading application servers, and accounting servers. LFSHK restored its system in phases, and the process was not complete until 7 October 2022.