Financial Intelligence Unit

Practitioners read them.

So at the national level, it would obviously send a very strong signal to national authorities, to the FIUs, that they should be including conflict financing risks in their national risk assessments.

We have found through our research that these risks are rarely included, or if they are, it's in a very superficial way.

At the financial institution level, we have actually, through our research, heard from banks that this is something that would be helpful for them to do their work No one wants to finance a conflict, you know, sitting at a bank and compliance officer.

Banks and financial intelligence units cannot simply wait for the FATF.

What could they begin doing differently tomorrow? I think it's very important

that for banks, FIUs, and wider government institutions as well, to really think about what are the typologies that would allow you to identify discrete types of threat actors.

It could be a relatively small population of these.

Shifting our focus to regulatory developments, welcome to BlockTalk AI Laws and Regulations.

Today is Friday, September 11th, 2026. we turn to India, where the Financial Intelligence Unit has issued a sweeping enforcement action against offshore crypto platforms.

On September 9th, the Ministry of Finance announced that the director of FIU India issued non-compliance notices to 15 offshore virtual digital asset service providers for serving Indian users without meeting anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing obligations.

Let's break down what happened.

Me takimaata, welcome back to Pacific Beat.

Now, Australia's Financial Intelligence Unit, AUSTRAC, is facilitating two major training initiatives in Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands.

The training involves simulated case studies to strengthen Pacific Island nations in detecting and disrupting money laundering and organized financial crime.

In Papua New Guinea, it's being delivered under the Australia PNG Bilateral Security Agreement.

And, and indeed, uh, to give, uh, our Pacific partners the tools to address the rapidly changing payment platform technologies.

Um, the, the other, uh, activity that you're referring to in Papua New Guinea, um, in that case, it was for all of the agencies in Papua New Guinea that are tasked with anti-money laundering.

Um, so that of course is the Financial Intelligence Unit, our counterpart.

That includes the police officers, customs officials, um, anti-corruption bodies.

Yet another union is calling for the finalization of their industrial agreement.

The latest union is the Regulatory and Allied Workers Union, which is the bargaining agent for permanent staff members for the Financial Intelligence Unit.

RAU president Nicole Francis telling our news that while negotiations began in September last year, the parties did not meet until November.

She's also alleging the executive team has resisted the union's diplomatic efforts, failed to respond to repeated communications and unnecessarily prolonged a process that should have and could have concluded much sooner.

It's a big pivot.

I think what had happened was that when FinCEN, when the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, which is the U.S. Financial Intelligence Unit, originally started rolling out the law, it started getting some initial pushback.

The same contingency of people Interests in Congress that had been pushing back on the law when it was first going through that initial process Got together started lobbying in the administration within Congress and with the courts And finally that hit the ears of certain folks in the administration.

But again, this is running counter to Trump officials own suited priorities on fentanyl on fighting cartels on Iran and so We'll have to see what happens in the months and maybe years ahead.

I worked as a writer for a while while I was at uni, and so I sort of naturally fell into communications.

I joined AUSTRAC, actually, the Financial Intelligence Unit, right before the AML-CTF Act No. 1 came into being.

And so I worked there in communications for a couple of years before I was given an opportunity to go into the intelligence field.

So that's actually how I moved into intelligence.

They share digital forensics instantly across continents.

And then you have the financial intelligence units or the FIUs.

And that's tracking cryptocurrency transactions, illicit wire transfers and shell corporations to freeze trafficker assets before they can be hidden offshore.

And it is worth stating that this is.

To further enhance transparency in commercial trade, Maldives Customs Service entered into a formal memorandum of understanding with all commercial banks operating in the country.

Under this agreement, the Financial Intelligence Unit will coordinate real-time verification of telegraphic transfers to guarantee that foreign currency transactions for imports match actual shipping documentation.

While those financial controls are being strengthened, the tourism sector is adjusting to new regulatory changes.

The Maldives Association of Travel Agents and Tour Operators expressed significant reservations regarding the recent Tourism Goods and Services Tax Amendment, which requires foreign travel platforms and overseas tour operators to register with tax authorities by October 1.

And then we get information back, we get that feedback loop from the regulated sector, and that's been really helpful.

And then thinking overseas, working with partners like US OFAC, FBI, FIUs around the world to share and exchange that information has been absolutely crucial.

Now, these networks still exist.

We're really confident that we've degraded them and we've pushed out certainly a lot of the management from the UK.