NEWS: Malaysia recovered €8bn in financial crime crackdown says FATF

Regulatory Watch News

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  Malaysia’s measures to counter money laundering, terrorist financing and proliferation financing

  FATF

  December 11, 2025

  11 December 2025 – The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) and Asia/Pacific Group on Money Laundering (APG) mutual evaluation of Malaysia assessed the effectiveness of the country’s anti-money laundering, countering terrorist financing and proliferation financing (AML/CFT/CPF) measures, and their level of compliance with the FATF Recommendations, at the time of an on-site visit in February 2025. The assessment found that Malaysia has significantly strengthened its defences against illicit finance since 2015, notably by enhancing its legal framework and supervisory approaches. However, Malaysia faces significant challenges in translating money laundering investigations into prosecutions and convictions.

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  GRECO assesses France’s progress in combating corruption in the executive, the police and the gendarmerie

  GRECO

  December 11, 2025

  The Council of Europe’s Group of States Against Corruption (GRECO) today published a report on France assessing progress made in implementing the recommendations addressed to the country in 2019 in the Fifth Round Evaluation Report on preventing corruption and promoting integrity in central governments (top executive functions) and law enforcement agencies. GRECO concludes that France has satisfactorily implemented or dealt with in a satisfactory manner four of the eighteen recommendations set out in the Fifth Round Evaluation Report. Nine recommendations have been partly implemented, and five recommendations have not been implemented.

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  Virtual Asset Trading Platform Pleads Guilty to Violating the Travel Act and Other Federal Criminal Charges

  US Department of Justice

  December 10, 2025

  Paxful Holdings Inc., an online virtual currency trading platform, agreed to plead guilty yesterday to a three-count information filed in the Eastern District of California and agreed to pay a criminal penalty of $4 million based on its ability to pay. “Paxful made millions of dollars in part by knowingly moving cryptocurrency for the benefit of fraudsters, extortionists, money launderers and purveyors of prostitution,” said Acting Assistant Attorney General Matthew R. Galeotti of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division. “The defendant attracted its criminal clientele by promoting its lack of anti-money laundering controls and its deliberate decision not to identify its customers. This conviction shows that no matter the means, the Criminal Division will hold criminals accountable for knowingly engaging in illicit finance to further dangerous criminal activity.”