Former Scottish First Minister Jack McConnell urges UK and Scottish parliaments to hold a joint inquiry into Peter Murrell's £400,000 embezzlement from the SNP. He suggests this would avoid perceptions of a cover-up or a "hatchet job" and examine the relationship between the prosecution service and government.
Former Scottish First Minister Jack McConnell has called for a joint inquiry by the UK and Scottish parliaments into Peter Murrell's embezzlement of over £400,000 from the SNP. Murrell, estranged husband of Nicola Sturgeon, pleaded guilty last week. McConnell suggested a joint probe could avoid perceptions of a cover-up or a 'hatchet job'.
Canada is establishing a new Financial Crimes Agency (FCA) to investigate and prosecute financial crimes, completing the bill's first reading in parliament. The agency results from a public inquiry finding Canada lacked a cohesive anti-money laundering strategy. Canada will also ban cryptocurrency ATMs, of which it has nearly 4,000—the most per capita globally. The move contrasts sharply with US policy under the Trump administration, which pardoned convicted money launderers and shifted thousands of investigators away from financial crime.
The IRS has paid Palantir $130 million since 2018 to use its Lead and Case Analytics software for probing financial crimes, according to public records obtained by American Oversight. The software aggregates data across federal agencies and can find connections from millions of records with thousands of links between databases, particularly effective at mapping human relationships and communications.
