Independent investigations, analysis, and news covering financial crime, fraud, and cybercrime.
Published by a former financial crime investigator and fraud examiner.
Escrow Disbursement Delays
Over 100 independent complaints across a dozen platforms describe the same experience: an online escrow company holding funds for weeks or months after all conditions are met, giving shifting explanations, and providing payment references that receiving banks cannot trace. We're investigating whether this is a systemic failure of fiduciary duty — and what's driving it.
Following the Float: Inside the Investigation →
The Rollover Machine: How a “Fiduciary” Advisory Firm Engineered Annuity Sales
A retired actuary noticed that every client file from the same advisory firm told the same story: roll your retirement plan into an IRA, buy an indexed annuity, lock up your money. The firm's risk-scoring tool almost always produced the same recommendation — regardless of the client's actual circumstances. We reverse-engineered the tool, built the regulatory case across 43 client files, and forced a $49 million settlement. This is how it worked.
The One-Way Latency Valve: How We Proved a Broker Was Systematically Skimming Client Trades
A retail trader noticed that his losing trades executed instantly while his winning trades seemed to hang. We built a six-week controlled experiment across five brokers, placed hundreds of trades around volatility events, and proved the asymmetry was real. Then we found the affiliated counterparty on the other side. This is how we built the case.
The Fee-Only Firm That Wasn’t: How We Uncovered Three Hidden Revenue Streams at a...
A retired surgeon asked a forensic account reviewer to look at his late sister's investment statements. What started as a routine review of one client's accounts became a two-month investigation across 19 accounts, revealing a fiduciary advisory firm that had quietly become conflicted while still describing itself as clean. This is the story of how we built a regulator-ready case — and what happened when we filed it.
Section 311: The Financial Weapon That Kills Banks
When FinCEN designates a foreign financial institution as a "primary money laundering concern," the institution rarely survives. The recent takedown of Swiss merchant bank MBaer — destroyed in days by a single Federal Register notice after its local regulator spent two years trying to shut it down — is a case study in Section 311's extraordinary power, and in the structural gap between domestic due process and U.S. administrative speed.
When Enforcement Fails, Accountability Doesn’t Have To
Government enforcement is only one mechanism for holding companies accountable for financial misconduct. When it weakens, others — sectoral regulators, civil courts, class actions, and informed public scrutiny — become more important, not less. Here's what I plan to do about it, and how you can help.
The Outsider Who Makes Fiduciary Duty Real
Madoff, Enron, Wirecard, Theranos, Sino-Forest, Nikola — in each case, the decisive pressure came not from boards, auditors, or regulators, but from a journalist, short seller, or forensic analyst who kept asking the question the institutions had stopped asking. These outsiders did not perform fiduciary duties. They forced fiduciary duty out of abstraction and into action.
What Happens When We Stop Fighting Financial Crime
In under a year, the U.S. has pardoned convicted money launderers, paused anti-bribery enforcement, and rolled back crypto oversight. The stated goal is to unleash business. As a former financial crime investigator, I believe the long-term consequences will be severe — not just for the U.S., but for every country that follows its lead.
The Crypto Hydra: Garantex, Grinex, and the Limits of Taking Down...
In March 2025, US, German, and Finnish authorities seized Garantex — the Russian crypto exchange sanctioned in 2022 for laundering ransomware proceeds and darknet market revenue. Two weeks later, Grinex launched with the same interface, the same team, and the same user base. Then came MKAN Coin, Exved, and ABCEX. This is the crypto hydra problem: cut off one head, and two more appear.
The Hidden Economics of Holding Other People’s Money
When a company holds client funds in a non-interest-bearing trust account, it can truthfully say it does not earn interest on your money. But that does not mean it derives no economic benefit. The Earnings Credit Rate mechanism — invisible in published financial statements — creates incentives that few customers understand.
Kelp DAO Hit for $293M in Largest DeFi Hack of 2026
An attacker exploited Kelp DAO's LayerZero-powered cross-chain bridge to drain 116,500 rsETH — approximately $293 million and 18% of the token's circulating supply. The forged cross-chain message triggered the largest DeFi exploit of 2026, a $5.4 billion withdrawal panic at Aave, and contagion across at least nine other protocols. LayerZero has preliminarily attributed the attack to North Korea's Lazarus Group.
FinCEN Rapid Response Programme Interdicts $2 Billion
FinCEN has announced that its Rapid Response Program — which coordinates with financial institutions to freeze fraudulent wire transfers before funds leave the banking system — has interdicted nearly $2 billion on behalf of US cyber-enabled fraud victims. The programme works by alerting receiving banks to freeze suspected fraud proceeds within hours of a victim report.
Drift Protocol Drained of $285M in DPRK-Linked Attack
Drift Protocol, the largest decentralised perpetual futures exchange on Solana, has been drained of approximately $285 million in a 12-minute attack that exploited compromised administrative keys, a fabricated collateral token, and pre-signed transactions. The attack, attributed with medium confidence to DPRK-linked actors, was the culmination of a six-month social engineering campaign.
DOJ Charges 10 in FBI Crypto Wash Trading Sting
Federal grand juries have indicted ten executives and employees from four cryptocurrency market-making firms — Gotbit, Vortex, Antier, and Contrarian — for orchestrating wash trading schemes that artificially inflated token prices and volumes. The charges followed an FBI undercover operation that created its own cryptocurrency tokens as bait. Three defendants were extradited from Singapore.
Pig-Butchering Kingpin Gets 20 Years After Cutting Ankle Monitor
A federal judge in California has sentenced Daren Li — a dual citizen of China and St. Kitts and Nevis — to the statutory maximum of 20 years in prison for his role in a $73 million cryptocurrency investment scam operated from scam centres in Cambodia. Li was sentenced in absentia after cutting off his ankle monitoring device and disappearing in December 2025.
$263M Bitcoin Stolen by Gaming-Platform Gang — Nine Guilty
A federal RICO prosecution has produced nine guilty pleas in a social engineering conspiracy that stole $263 million in Bitcoin from a single victim in Washington, DC. The gang — which originated on online gaming platforms — used stolen databases, social engineering calls, and residential burglaries targeting hardware wallets to steal cryptocurrency, then laundered it through $40,000-to-$80,000-a-month rental homes.
Najib Found Guilty in Final 1MDB Trial
Former Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak has been found guilty on all 25 counts of abuse of power, criminal breach of trust, and money laundering in his final 1MDB trial. The court imposed a 15-year sentence and fines totalling RM 11.4 billion ($2.82 billion) for the theft of sovereign wealth fund assets.
Do Kwon Gets 15 Years for $40B Terra Collapse
Do Kwon has been sentenced to 15 years in federal prison for fraud charges stemming from the May 2022 collapse of Terra/Luna, which wiped out approximately $40 billion and triggered a cascade of crypto insolvencies. The sentence follows extradition from Montenegro and a guilty plea to multiple counts.
Samourai Wallet Founders Get 5 Years for Mixing
Samourai Wallet co-founders Keonne Rodriguez and William Lonergan Hill have been sentenced to five and four years respectively for conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money-transmitting business. Their CoinJoin-based Bitcoin mixer processed over $2 billion in transactions, including $237 million in directly traceable proceeds from darknet markets and CSAM sites.
Tornado Cash Developer Convicted of Money Laundering
A Manhattan jury has convicted Tornado Cash co-founder Roman Storm of conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money-transmitting business, finding the crypto mixer processed over $1 billion in identifiable criminal proceeds. The jury deadlocked on the more serious money laundering and sanctions charges, producing a split verdict in one of crypto's most consequential cases.