Not too stressed about the Cambridge Analytica scandal? Perhaps you should be.

Facebook is so embarrassed by the Cambridge Analytica data scandal that it took out expensive adverts in UK and US media last week to apologise to its users. But if you were appalled by the way in which personal data on Facebook appears to have been manipulated for political ends, have you thought about how this data could also be used to target your finances? Data security experts warn that too few people understand how their data can make them vulnerable to financial crime.

Facebook shares fell 5% Tuesday on reports that CEO Mark Zuckerberg agreed to testify in front of Congress about the company’s data scandal.

The crisis began on March 16 after Facebook (FB) said it was suspending data analysis company Cambridge Analytica for allegedly harvesting data from more than 50 million Facebook users. Cambridge Analytica worked on Donald Trump’s presidential campaign.

Since then, Facebook’s stock has plunged 18%, wiping out nearly $80 billion from the social networking giant’s market value in the process. Zuckerberg’s net worth has fallen by about $14 billion. (He is still worth $61 billion, though).

Tech stocks in general have taken a hit since the Facebook allegations first came to light. The Nasdaq is down 6%…Independent

A two-day workshop involving over sixty financial investigators in Basel, Switzerland has seen Europol and Interpol agree upon a range of measures designed to ramp up efforts to combat the use of cryptocurrencies for money laundering and terrorist financing purposes. The event saw attendance from over 60 international financial investigators.
Crypto Finance Conference 2018

The price of a Bitcoin, which first surpassed the gold price nearly a year ago, is now worth more than seven times the value of an ounce of the metal (currently priced at $1,338). That’s after the Bitcoin price has tumbled recently to its current value around $10,000, half what it was worth at its all-time high last month.

Terrorists Are Increasingly Interested Bitcoin defenddemocracy.org

Read the full article here. 

How Chinese bitcoin buyers are getting around the government ban

Aljazeera’s Investigative Unit unravels a high-stakes international plot hatched by powerful Eastern European oligarchs to make millions of dollars from a crooked deal. According to one Ukrainian analyst: “It sounds like an agreement between criminal bosses. You can sign it with your blood.” The scheme involves using a web of offshore companies and international lawyers to raid US$160 million dollars under the noses of the authorities.

The money is effectively being stolen for a second time… the funds were initially frozen by Ukraine’s courts after its former president, Viktor Yanukovych, was discovered to have emptied the country’s treasury. The Oligarchs include an exiled gas billionaire guarded by Russian special forces, a Moscow property magnate and an Olympic show jumper on the run from Ukrainian authorities. The investigation shines light on the ever shifting battle between the oligarchs and global financial regulators.
Al Jazeera Investigations

By Stuttmann
www.stuttmann-karikaturen.de

Turkish gold trader implicates Erdogan in Iran money laundering. He told jurors in a New York federal court that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan personally authorized a transaction in a scheme to help Iran evade US sanctions….. Department of Justice

Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, was not charged in the indictment, but he seemed to loom over the Federal District Court case in Manhattan during the monthlong trial and even before it began. Testimony suggested that he had approved the sanctions-busting scheme….NYtimes/ Turkey-Iran-Sanctions

Turkey’s Erdogan threatens to cut ties with US over jailing of banker and is now threatening the United States with a libel suit.

Senior Moldovan Judge’s Daughter Lived In Posh London Flat — With Tainted Money.

Most of the money went to a real estate agency to cover the rent of a luxurious apartment not far from Buckingham Palace in which Mihaela Muruianu lived while studying in London. A smaller portion was deposited directly into her personal bank account.

She is the daughter of Judge Ion Muruianu, the former president of Moldova’s highest court. The money was funneled from Russia through a series of ghost companies registered in the United Kingdom (UK), and its precise origin is not known.

But the payments raise questions about the Muruianu family’s access to significant wealth, given that their total declared income for 2012 stood at 752,000 lei ($62,000) – a little less than the $66,000 estimated cost of the apartment for a single year.

When reached for comment, the judge and his daughter both said they knew nothing about the Russian Laundromat. Mihaela Muruianu further denied any knowledge of the ghost companies from which the transfers originated.

“I do not know the kind of activity these companies are involved in or who their founders are,” Mihaela Muruianu said.

Money from Ghost Companies. The Laundromat scheme was elaborate, involving the fraudulent transfer of massive sums out of Russia and into the European Union with the help of corrupt Moldovan judges…. OCCRP.org

According to Transparency International (TI), an anti-corruption watchdog, Moldova is the most corrupt country in south-eastern Europe, ranking 123rd out of 176 on the group’s Corruption Perceptions Index. In its 2015 report, TI noted that Moldova’s judicial system has been “compromised by the non-meritocratic promotion of judges and by selective justice applied to political competitors.”

New Scottish links to $20bn Russian Money-Laundering scheme as judge’s daughter paid by Edinburgh shell firm

Congo Presidents Daughter Charged with Corruption

President Donald Trump made tens of millions of dollars in profits by allowing Colombian drug cartels and other groups to launder money through a Trump-affiliated hotel in Panama, according to a new investigation by the organization Global Witness.

How an alleged fraudster in Panama, working with Donald Trump’s daughter, helped make Trump’s first international hotel venture a success. The broker was in business with a money-launderer and two criminals from the former Soviet Union….
Globalwitness.org/ Corruption and Money Laundering
Reuters.com/Investigates/ Ivanka and the fugitive from Panama
Newsweek.com/
Money Laundering