Financial Transparency Coalition

Iran's currency is in free-fall. After a slow slide throughout 2012, the Iranian Rial all of the sudden took a dive this week, according to CNN:

Over the past six months, various arms of the law in the United States have significantly increased their anti-money laundering enforcement actions. The centerpiece of these actions have been fines to ING, Standard Chartered, and an anticipated forthcoming action against HSBC. Other banks, and even Wal-Mart, could be targeted in the near future as well.

This spring, reports surfaced that Wal-Mart's Mexico arm may have engaged in widespread bribery in order to rapidly increase its presence in Mexico. Even immediately after the initial New York Times story, the company itself hinted that a thorough investigation may turn up even more.

WASHINGTON, DC – In response to news today that British bank Standard Chartered PLC settled money laundering allegations with New York regulators by agreeing to pay $340 million in fines and submitting to monitoring, Heather Lowe, legal counsel and director of Government Affairs at Global Financial Integrity, released the following statement.