The Government launched the ‘Eat Out to Help Out’ (EOTHO) scheme on the 3rd August 2020 to boost the hospitality sector which had suffered heavily from falling revenues during the first lockdown. This easy to access scheme, saw claims made for over 100 million meals at an estimated cost to the Treasury of a staggering £522 million. Unsurprisingly – as with furlough – there are concerns that businesses may have wrongly benefitted from the regime and fraudulent claims…

Unexplained Wealth Orders (UWOs) have returned to the news, with the reporting that £10 million in cash and property has…

The Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (the “Furlough Scheme”) The coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19) detrimentally impacted not just public health, the NHS…

Earlier this week in an article about Anti Money-Laundering risk in the property sector I broke down the figures from the National Crime Agency’s Financial Investigation Unit (NCA) (FIU) report into Suspicious Activity Reports and Defence Against Money-Laundering (DAML) requests for the period 2018/19.

In highlighting that £55m of the £131m restrained/seized/frozen by UK law enforcement after DAML requests had come as a result of Account Freezing Orders (AFOs), I commented:

‘The FIU report is the first one where the provisions of the Criminal Finances Act 2017 have had a significant impact on the headline figures’.

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) is the UK’s primary conduct regulator for the financial services sector and derives its regulatory and enforcement powers from the Financial Services & Markets Act 2000. Cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin and Etheurem, exist only electronically and use a peer-to-peer system supported by blockchain technology for onward transfer.