S2E5 Rachel Wolcott, Compliance Corylated

This episode features Rachel Wolcott, a founding editor of Compliance Corylated, writing on financial fraud, market abuse, and of course cryptocurrency.

This episode covers both (i) the state of industry onboarding, including know-your-client and anti-money laundering checks and well as (ii) fraud repayment initiatives.

 

Matt and Rachel speak about:

 

👉 Why there are so many fines and bad practices including:

 

🚩 KuCoin’s fine of $297 million for unlicensed money transmission charges, amongst other things https://tinyurl.com/5b8er5f4;

 

🚩OKX’s fine of over $500million for AML violations, following facilitation of over five billion dollars’ worth of suspicious transactions and criminal proceeds https://tinyurl.com/mr2v2dda; and

 

🚩Last year’s judgment in D’Aloia which included “BitKub’s customer not only received laundered funds but also had some active involvement in the fraud, whether as a perpetrator of it or as a money mule who lent the use of her account to those behind the fraud” https://tinyurl.com/5x9a53xb;

 

👉 Rachel’s article from 22 January 2025 which notes that the FCA have relied on powers under the Money Laundering Regulations 45 times since 2020.

 

👉 Her Thomson Reuters article about a KYC provider, with links to the Russian government;

 

👉 The T3 Financial Crime Unit between Tether, TRON and TRM Labs, and why that might seem odd given TRM’s criticism of Tether https://tinyurl.com/2m7c3cpb and https://tinyurl.com/urc55sth

 

👉 Rachel’s views on Mercuryo and Baanx, offering Mastercard debit cards https://tinyurl.com/cyrwtzs4;

 

👉 The Authorised Push Payment reimbursement scheme, introduced in October 2024

 

 👉 The ACAMS Global AFC Threats Report 2025 considers “[o]rganised crime harnessing the power of technology” and nots “tools like social media, messaging apps, generative AI and crypto assets enable criminals to scale their operations and profits, while governments, law enforcement, and industry are struggling to keep up”.