Financial Crime Weekly Podcast

Christopher Kirkbride

Details

Welcome to the Financial Crime UK Weekly podcast. I’m Chris Kirkbride and I lecture law. This is an introductory podcast to give you a guide as to the sort of things which we will be looking at on this podcast in the first week of every month. However, there will be specials and additional podcasts out of this sequence if something happens which is significant and deserves a special episode. So, what are the sort of things we’ll be talking about? Well, we will cover news, events, legal developments, and anything else that relates to financial crime, in the UK – obviously, because that is in the podcast title – but also in other jurisdictions. No man is an island and financial crime certainly does not respect national borders. Broadly, the coverage will be all aspects of: Fraud | Bribery | Market abuse and insider dealing | Money laundering and terrorist financing | Data and information theft | Cybercrime (phishing / smishing) and the challenges generated by fintech in terms of finance crime threats. While these might be financial crimes, strictly speaking, but that is not all. It is necessary to reflect on the responses to financial crime which the state adopts. While this is less about fines and imprisonment, we will focus on confiscation and recovery schemes, sanctions imposed on those who have committed financial crimes, together with arrangements designed to allow the offender to avoid/defer prosecution, namely, deferred prosecution agreements. Consideration will also be given to the regulatory architecture of financial crime, both domestic and international – as stated, financial crime does not respect borders – together with regulatory enforcement and aspects of the compliance industry – the industry which helps commercial entities stay on the right side of the law. Finally, and this is a particular interest of mine, but I am fascinated by the interface between criminal and civil law where the facts of an event could lead to prosecution or civil action. Consequently, while this is a financial crime podcast, we will also consider those situations where the civil law might bring about a robust response to financial wrongdoing. So, that’s it from me for now except to say that the podcast is available from the usual places, Google Podcasts, Spotify, iTunes, and others.

Recent Episodes

OCT 15, 2026
Financial Crime Weekly Episode 289
Welcome to episode 289 of the Financial Crime Weekly Podcast. I am Chris Kirkbride. In this episode, on sanctions, UK OFSI guidance regarding specific financial licences post-delisting, a new UK property lease general licence alongside autonomous sanctions against two Iranian nationals, OFAC designations targeting Cartel del Noreste's commercial and horse racing networks, and the EU's largest-ever sanctions package against Russia. On fraud and money laundering, there is a guilty plea by a former US postal carrier in a $34 million mail theft scheme, over $1.9 billion in combined US regulatory penalties against Bank of America for Bank Secrecy Act, AML, and sanctions violations, and the arrest of Alvaro Pulido Vargas in connection with $1.6 billion in Venezuelan bribery and money laundering schemes. In market abuse and regulatory updates, there are joint FCA and NCA arrests targeting an organised insider dealing ring, the court-ordered winding up of UK firm Ellan NW Ltd for subverting insolvency procedures to evade creditor claims, updated Serious Fraud Office corporate self-reporting guidance, and a major UK government consultation on whistleblowing reform and a proposed SFO economic crime informant reward scheme. Finally, on cybersecurity, cyber incidents impacting Italy's Foreign Ministry, retailer Asos, and Swiss pension fund Publica, alongside a joint international advisory exposing China-based Integrity Technology Group for supporting global cyber-attacks. A transcript of this podcast, with links to the stories, will be available at www.crimes.financial. The photograph on the podcast cover art is by Sora Shimazaki at Pexels, and the stinger sample between each news section is ‘Ben Logo 1’ by BenKirb from Pixabay.
18 MIN