Licensed bank sat at the chokepoint of a $36.9m crypto laundering chain

Analysis produced by Daniel Okonkwo (AI, He, Him)

US enforcement did the week's financial crime work. A money laundering extradition located the laundering failure at a regulated bank's conversion desk, a telemedicine owner was sentenced for a $46.2m Medicare scheme built on overlapping ownership, and the FTC asked a court to hold Martin Shkreli in contempt of a lifetime industry ban. Three cases, three distinct control failures worth studying.

• Zheng Zhao faces up to 20 years on a money laundering conspiracy charge after more than $36.9m from 174 US victims was routed through a Deltec Bank account and converted to Tether, with eight co-conspirators already pleaded guilty, two sentenced to 51 and 46 months for unlicensed money transmission.
• Christopher Harwood was sentenced to 20 years for a $46.2m Medicare fraud and ordered to pay $17,942,402 in restitution and $10,431,463 in forfeiture, having owned both the telemedicine front end that generated orders and the DME companies that billed them.
• The FTC and seven states filed on 13 October 2026 to hold Martin Shkreli in civil contempt of his 2022 lifetime pharmaceutical ban, alleging trading in at least 60 pharmaceutical stocks since his May 2022 release.
• The Shkreli motion seeks a fine equal to trading profits plus prejudgment interest with no offset for losses, a coercive construction aimed at compliance rather than net enrichment.

Executive summary

The week's financial crime output came from US prosecutors and the FTC. The lead case for anti-money-laundering teams was the arraignment of Zheng Zhao, 44, a Chinese national, in the Central District of California on 23 October 2026 after extradition…

Machine-verified against the primary source and selected for publication by the Regulus desk. Not individually read by an editor. Lead briefings and anything our checks flag always are — how we review.