St Georges Strategy

Signals / Financial crime

Fraud, scams, sanctions, and control evidence

The financial-crime topic page turns public-source fraud, AML, sanctions, cryptoasset, and scam signals into ownership, prevention, detection, and escalation questions.

Curated memory

Still material

These signals remain live after editorial review. Most stay for up to 90 days; exceptional structural anchors can remain for six months with a recorded reason.

  1. Longer-term anchorReviewed 2 Aug

    Fraudscape 2026: fraud cases hit record highs as identity fraud and AI-enabled account takeover scale up

    Industry data / Cifas Fraudscape 2026 / 2026-03-12
  2. Structural referenceReviewed 2 Aug

    Financial-crime governance should be traceable from risk assessment to control testing

    Official guidance / FCA financial crime guide
  3. Longer-term anchorReviewed 2 Aug

    FCA review finds firms still lack independent testing and version control in customer due diligence controls

    Primary / FCA / 2026-04-08
  4. 90-day windowReviewed 2 Aug

    JMLSG consults on Part I amendments covering MLRO cross-border oversight and bank-insolvency exceptions

    Industry guidance / JMLSG / 2026-06-01
  5. Structural referenceReviewed 2 Aug

    Cryptoasset AML expectations should link onboarding, monitoring, custody, and suspicious activity controls

    Official expectations / FCA cryptoasset AML regime

Signal → Implication → Decision

Turn the lead signal into an owner decision

This framework turns the current lead signal into the implication and decision a senior owner should be able to act on.

Signal

SEC Charges Former Executives With Fraud in Connection With

Why it made the weekly brief

.9 Billion Collapse of Subprime Auto Lender Tricolor

Primary / US Securities and Exchange Commission / 2026-08-18

Implication

Financial-crime control expectations are moving toward provable escalation, ownership, typology refresh, and customer-harm evidence.

Decision

Decide which fraud, scams, sanctions, AML, and crypto controls need fresh testing evidence and accountable remediation dates.

Why it made the weekly brief

The editorial judgement

Financial crime matters when external threat, customer harm, regulatory expectation, and the evidence that controls actually worked meet in the same operating question.

So what

Financial crime is a customer and control story

The best signal is not only loss. It is whether the firm can show prevention, detection, escalation, redress, and learning before harm repeats.

Who cares

MLRO, fraud, sanctions, payments, product, conduct, and board owners

The same signal can sit across AML, sanctions, scam reimbursement, cryptoasset exposure, and Consumer Duty.

Evidence needed

Risk assessment, typologies, alerts, decisions, and outcomes

Controls need to evidence why a scenario exists, when it fired, how it was dispositioned, and what customer or regulatory action followed.

Financial crime evidence checklist

What the reader should ask for

This checklist gives financial-crime owners practical prompts that can move straight into a review, committee pack, or assurance request.