Bank of New Zealand processed a payment "identified to be for oil originating from Iran" breaching its own Economic and Trade Sanctions Policy.

At least three of six people arrested in a major police investigation into alleged money laundering have been barred from stepping foot inside an ANZ bank.

The Department’s view is that, with the exception of payments for your professional fees, any instance where you receive or hold client funds and control the payment of those funds will be captured as ‘managing client funds’. 

A meth dealer's boasts to an undercover cop triggered a new police investigation into his father's financial affairs and a three year legal battle over $10 million and 15 commercial properties in Gisborne.

The cost of implementing a raft of new laws has cost the real estate industry tens of millions of dollars, the Real Estate Institute says.

A money transfer company has been fined $4 million for repeated non-compliance with anti-money laundering legislation.

In recent audits of law firms we established that they were not conducting customer due diligence when anticipated disbursements were received in advance. The cause for this appeared to be advice received from external consultants deeming this to not be a captured activity.

The FMA (one of the three AML/CFT Supervisors) published their monitoring report in April 2019 and commented on the requirement for Reporting Entities (REs) to undertake PEP and Sanction checks. This requirement would extend to all REs.

DIA has reminded reporting entities that DIA does not endorse private sector AML services.

This is a sad case of someone who got involved in setting up structures to help the world’s elite hide and launder money which ended here in New Zealand with its founder passing away on 9 June 2019. We thought long and hard about publishing this story but thought it serves as a warning to others.

A 41-year-old lawyer is charged with eight counts of laundering more than $2.4m and is accused of participating in the organised criminal group.

An Auckland accountant was also arrested as part of the raids. The 40-year-old, who is accused of laundering $275,000 in cash and cocaine possession, will appear in court again in July.

The FMA issued its AML/CFT 2018 Annual Monitoring Report (published April 2019) that covers the period 1 July 2016 to 30 June 2018. We recommend that all reporting entities read this as the same issues will be found across all segments covered by the AML/CFT regime.

The recent media reporting on Operation Nova, a Police investigation into the Comanchero gang, is a timely reminder of the importance of our anti-money laundering measures. During the investigation, Police restrained $3.7 million of assets under the Criminal Proceeds Recovery Act alleged to be the proceeds of crime.

New Zealand is something of a dark horse in the world of offshore finance with "very clear, intentional and excited" use of NZ as a clean tax haven evident, says Will Fitzgibbon 

Four people from an international drug smuggling syndicate have been arrested after police found 11 kilograms of methamphetamine worth $5.5 million stashed inside cooking appliances.