Danske Bank said Tuesday it has reached a settlement with U.S. and Danish authorities in one of the world’s largest money-laundering scandals, pleading guilty to bank fraud conspiracy and a civil securities fraud and agreeing to pay a total of US$2 billion in fines.

The former head of a New York construction union and 10 others pleaded guilty on Monday to accepting dozens of bribes against the interests of union workers, the U.S. Department of Justice said.

Russia’s desire to control the media has spread beyond its borders, as Russia’s media regulator ordered an independent media outlet in Kazakhstan to remove its reporting on the Ukrainian conflict.

In China’s latest crackdown on cryptocurrency fraud, police say they arrested 63 people suspected of helping domestic and foreign criminal groups launder the equivalent of US$1.7 billion through virtual currencies, according to a statement released last weekend.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Tuesday charged the CEO of a now-defunct crypto exchange platform with orchestrating a scheme to defraud his investors as well as regular customers of billions of dollars.

Santander UK was fined £107.7 million (US$132.2 million) on Friday after the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) found "serious and persistent gaps" in the bank’s anti-money laundering controls at its business banking operations.

Four Chinese nationals living in Sydney, Australia, were charged for their alleged role in a cyber enabled investment scam that swindled more than US$100 million from victims world-wide, especially in the U.S., according to a statement released by the Australian Federal Police (AFP).

Roberta Metsola, president of the European Union (EU), said Monday that European democracy is under attack, following allegations by Belgian prosecutors over the weekend that Qatar had sought to shape EU policy by bribing multiple European parliament members.

A criminal network smuggling migrants into the European Union (EU) through the Belarusian border was targeted by Polish, Estonian, German, Lithuanian and Latvian police, coordinated by Europol, last week.

Despite its setback Wednesday in the U.S. Senate, a proposed law called the ENABLERS Act still holds considerable support from experts in the national security and foreign policy communities as a means to combat money laundering in the U.S..