A new law that gives U.K. officials up to seven months to freeze and investigate suspicious transfers played a key role in foiling the theft of hundreds of millions of dollars from the National Bank of Angola last year, according to legal records and an unpublished report.
The wife of a foreign banker jailed for fraud and embezzlement faces the prospect of having two residences worth a combined £22 million seized after the High Court in London threw out her challenge to the United Kingdom's first unexplained wealth order, or UWO.
Banks in the United Kingdom filed a record number of "defense against money laundering" requests for the second year running amid an overall rise in the number of suspicious activity reports filed to the country's financial intelligence unit, UKFIU.