Mashreq organized yesterday, its 1st International Compliance Forum in Dubai. Compliance & Management teams gathered from all Mashreq International and UAE branches along with internationally renowned speakers on Anti Money Laundering (AML) & Sanctions Compliance.

Authorities suspect a large share of money donated for tsunami relief actually found its way to the Tamil Tigers.
Walking the streets of Colombo, one can easily bump into the anti-car bomb barriers, steel barricades with razor-sharp barbed wire, watchtowers with armed police, roadblocks, and on and on. Why the Sri Lankan government and defence agencies have to come up with such stringent security measures is understandable. Even those who have not followed the long battle between the government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) can quickly sense the tension that grips this nation. Simply scanning local newspapers reveals many reports of LTTE attacks.

A tremendous amount of fuss has been made about ‘new’ KYC (Know Your Customer) requirement in recent years and yet I cannot recall a time (or a bank), ever, not asking the type of diligence questions we ask today at account opening, when one was applying for a loan. No one grants credit without understanding precisely who you are, where you live and work and how likely you are to repay the money lent to you. Why should we not therefore wish to reduce our risk in account opening too by asking similar due diligence questions? KYC simply takes Customer Identification (CI) to the next level.

KUWAIT: World Check, which is the industry pioneer in providing Know Your Customer and Politically Exposed Persons (PEP) risk-related intelligence, will take part in the First Kuwait & Middle East Conference for Combating Money Laundering. The conference will be held in Kuwait from November 4-7 under the special patronage of His Highness the Prime Minister Sheikh Nasser Al-Mohammad Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah.

A collection of press articles in Arabic about World-Check's CEO David Leppan being invited as the sole KYC industry expert to speak at the First Kuwait and Middle East Conference for Combating Money Laundering, in Kuwait from 4-7 November, 2006.

Sureillance services are gaining business globally, and World-Check senses opportunity in India.

David Leppan, founder and CEO of World-Check was recently exclusively interviewed by IBS's Hari Misra.

The UK government order to freeze the bank accounts of 19 suspects in the alleged airline bomb plot was issued quickly but might have a limited impact if the amounts of money involved were relatively small, financial crime experts said yesterday.

"Anti-money-laundering and counter-terrorism finance laws won't stop a July 7 terrorist attack - but they can help authorities identify those involved," said David Leppan, founder and director of the World-Check database, which catalogues criminals uncovered by authorities and then sells its list to subscribers.

May 2006 - The United Nations will run background checks on suppliers using a database supplied free of charge by a London-based firm. Several UN agencies will use World-Check's system to screen suppliers for allegations of criminal activities such as identity fraud, money laundering or drug trafficking.