London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Thursday, Oct 09, 2025

Senior employee at Mastercard was ‘involved in money laundering’

Senior employee at Mastercard was ‘involved in money laundering’

A Mastercard executive allegedly was involved in a money-laundering operation at a bank accused of terrorist financing and organised crime that had links to Wirecard, the disgraced German payments group.
A report commissioned by the owners of FBME Bank in Cyprus uncovered evidence of apparent criminal activity, including an alleged operation designed to trick the international card payments system into processing high-risk and potentially illegal transactions.

Private investigators found the “apparent involvement of a senior Mastercard employee in criminal activities” and recommended that the bank’s shareholders tell prosecutors in the United States that a source of the problem “may be with Mastercard”.

The investigation, called Project Waxwing, was commissioned after the US Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network froze FBME out of the American banking system in 2014. It accused FBME of being used by customers to “facilitate money laundering, terrorist financing, transnational organised crime, fraud, sanctions evasion and other illicit activity”. Money processed by FBME was said to have links to internet child sex abuse and the Syria’s chemical weapons programme.

Project Waxwing, along with two reports from Kroll, the corporate investigations firm, found problems with FBME’s card services division, which was linked to Wirecard via a key client, who was accused of helping to facilitate the alleged payments fraud.

The investigation by Nigel Brown and Alec Leighton, two former British police officers, found an operation allegedly involving hundreds of thousands of phantom transactions created to “circumvent or outmanoeuvre” anti-fraud and money-laundering systems within Visa and Mastercard.

The alleged intention was to “dilute” the high level of “chargebacks”, or returned transactions, being generated by illicit activity to avoid scrutiny from Visa and Mastercard. A chargeback occurs when a customer complains about a good or service. Their credit card company will refund them pending an investigation. High chargeback rates are a red flag for fraud. An unnamed Mastercard executive was alleged to have helped to facilitate the operation.

Pinging “phantom” transactions back and forth via UK and Cyprus shell companies added apparently innocuous payments that diluted the fraud ratio, allowing illicit activity to continue, the investigators concluded.
Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
France: Less Than a Month After His Appointment, the New French Prime Minister Resigns
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán stated that Hungary will not adopt the euro because the European Union is falling apart.
Sarah Mullally Becomes First Woman Appointed Archbishop of Canterbury
Mayor in western Germany in intensive care after stabbing
Australian government pays Deloitte nearly half a million dollars for a report built on fabricated quotes, fake citations, and AI-generated nonsense.
US Prosecutors Gained Legal Approval to Hack Telegram Servers
Macron Faces Intensifying Pressure to Resign or Trigger New Elections Amid France’s Political Turmoil
Standard Chartered Names Roberto Hoornweg as Sole Head of Corporate & Investment Banking
UK Asylum Housing Firm Faces Backlash Over £187 Million Profits and Poor Living Conditions
UK Police Crack Major Gang in Smuggling of up to 40,000 Stolen Phones to China
BYD’s UK Sales Soar Nearly Nine-Fold, Making Britain Its Biggest Market Outside China
Trump Proposes Farm Bailout from Tariff Revenues Amid Backlash from Other Industries
FIFA Accuses Malaysia of Forging Citizenship Documents, Suspends Seven Footballers
Latvia to Bar Tourist and Occasional Buses to Russia and Belarus Until 2026
A Dollar Coin Featuring Trump’s Portrait Expected to Be Issued Next Year
Australia Orders X to Block Murder Videos, Citing Online Safety and Public Exposure
Three Scientists Awarded Nobel Prize in Medicine for Discovery of Immune Self-Tolerance Mechanism
OpenAI and AMD Forge Landmark AI-Chip Alliance with Equity Option
Munich Airport Reopens After Second Drone Shutdown
France Names New Government Amid Political Crisis
Trump Stands Firm in Shutdown Showdown and Declares War on Drug Cartels — Turning Crisis into Opportunity
Surge of U.S. Billionaires Transforms London’s Peninsula Apartments into Ultra-Luxury Stronghold
Pro Europe and Anti-War Babiš Poised to Return to Power After Czech Parliamentary Vote
Jeff Bezos Calls AI Surge a ‘Good’ Bubble, Urges Focus on Lasting Innovation
Japan’s Ruling Party Chooses Sanae Takaichi, Clearing Path to First Female Prime Minister
Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Sentenced to Fifty Months in Prison Following Prostitution Conviction
Taylor Swift’s ‘Showgirl’ Launch Extends Billion-Dollar Empire
Trump Administration Launches “TrumpRx” Plan to Enable Direct Drug Sales at Deep Discounts
Trump Announces Intention to Impose 100 Percent Tariff on Foreign-Made Films
Altman Says GPT-5 Already Outpaces Him, Warns AI Could Automate 40% of Work
Singapore and Hong Kong Vie to Dominate Asia’s Rising Gold Trade
Trump Organization Teams with Saudi Developer on $1 Billion Trump Plaza in Jeddah
Manhattan Sees Surge in Office-to-Housing Conversions, Highest Since 2008
Switzerland and U.S. Issue Joint Assurance Against Currency Manipulation
Electronic Arts to Be Taken Private in Historic $55 Billion Buyout
Thomas Jacob Sanford Named as Suspect in Deadly Michigan Church Shooting and Arson
Russian Research Vessel 'Yantar' Tracked Mapping Europe’s Subsea Cables, Raising Security Alarms
New York Man Arrested After On-Air Confession to 2017 Parents’ Murders
U.S. Defense Chief Orders Sudden Summit of Hundreds of Generals and Admirals
Global Cruise Industry Posts Dramatic Comeback with 34.6 Million Passengers in 2024
Trump Claims FBI Planted 274 Agents at Capitol Riot, Citing Unverified Reports
India: Internet Suspended in Bareilly Amid Communal Clashes Between Muslims and Hindus
Supreme Court Extends Freeze on Nearly $5 Billion in U.S. Foreign Aid at Trump’s Request
Archaeologists Recover Statues and Temples from 2,000-Year-Old Sunken City off Alexandria
China Deploys 2,000 Workers to Spain to Build Major EV Battery Factory, Raising European Dependence
Speed Takes Over: How Drive-Through Coffee Chains Are Rewriting U.S. Coffee Culture
U.S. Demands Brussels Scrutinize Digital Rules to Prevent Bias Against American Tech
Ringo Starr Champions Enduring Beatles Legacy While Debuting Las Vegas Art Show
Private Equity’s Fundraising Surge Triggers Concern of European Market Shake-Out
Colombian President Petro Vows to Mobilize Volunteers for Gaza and Joins List of Fighters
×