U.K. authorities have frozen 22 London properties that the Azerbaijani lawmaker Javanshir Feyziyev and his wife are suspected to have bought with “the proceeds of unlawful conduct,” a high court heard on Thursday.

German prosecutors brought bribery and corruption charges against four people on Monday, including two former lawmakers suspected of receiving bribes from Azerbaijan in exchange for voting in Baku’s favor at the Council of Europe.

Nearly 40% of the e-payment sector in the United Kingdom, which made more than £500 billion (US$660.2 billion) worth of transactions in 2020/21, have been flagged red — a warning of money laundering risk, a Transparency International UK research published on Tuesday found.

Netflix’s upcoming film “The Laundromat” makes a fictionalized, star-studded comedy out of the 2016 Panama Papers scandal, turning Meryl Streep into a bereaved widow bent on exposing the illicit world of global tax evasion, and Gary Oldman and Antonio Banderas into the cackling, flashily-dressed duo at the head of Mossack Fonseca & Co, the firm that was at the center of the Panama Papers investigation and that was once the fourth largest provider of offshore financial services. 

Aivar Rehe, the head of Danske Bank’s Estonian branch, was found dead on Wednesday after he went missing Monday evening from his home in Tallinn, the national ERR TVreported citing Estonia’s Police.

Now that Meryl Streep is involved, there’s no denying it: Money laundering is a hot topic. In the new Netflix film, “The Laundromat,” the legendary Hollywood actress plays an ordinary woman who falls victim to an insurance scam that — as her dogged investigation reveals — is linked to an illicit financial network that spans the globe.

A Russian cellist and childhood friend of Vladimir Putin received at least $69 million from Troika Laundromat companies. He earned $11.6 million from cancellation fees for 16 consecutive stock deals.

Perhaps one of the most powerful tales of the Troika Laundromat comes from a dead man: a Viennese lawyer who regretted his involvement in the scheme — and whose body turned up in an Austrian forest.

Laundromats are complex systems for moving money that allow corrupt politicians, organized crime figures, and wealthy businessmen to secretly invest their ill-gotten millions, launder money, evade taxes, and fulfill other goals.

The central London apartment where Mihaela Muruianu once lived.

The daughter of a top Moldovan judge lived large in London thanks to 1.6 million lei (US$ 130,000) that was channeled through two companies involved in the Russian Laundromat -- a massive money laundering scheme that pumped billions of dollars through Moldova from Russia.

Denmark’s biggest bank, Danske Bank, is alleged to have actively and knowingly helped highly questionable clients to elude the scrutiny of authorities, Danish newspaper Berlingske revealed on Thursday.

The Azerbaijani Laundromat is a complex money-laundering operation and slush fund that handled $2.9 billion over a two-year period through four shell companies registered in the UK.

Russia’s dirty laundry has been put out to dry by investigative reporters working together across 32 countries in a major project led by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) and Moscow-based Novaya Gazeta.

Three years ago, OCCRP exposed the “Russian Laundromat” - an immense financial fraud scheme that enabled vast sums to be pumped out of Russia. The money was laundered and moved into Europe and beyond through bribery and a clever exploitation of the Moldovan legal system.

Sixteen judges and four court bailiffs have been accused by Moldovan anti-corruption prosecutors of involvement in the notorious Russian Laundromat, a massive money-laundering scheme that siphoned an estimated US$ 20 billion in dirty money from Russia into the European Union and other locations.