Reporting Policy
AML Network reports on money laundering and the structures that enable it. Much of what we publish concerns people and companies who have not been convicted of anything. This policy sets out the standards applied before publication, and what happens when we get something wrong.
Sources and verification
We work from the public record: court filings and judgments, company registries and beneficial ownership data, land registries, insolvency records, sanctions and designated-person lists, regulator enforcement notices, parliamentary and legislative evidence, and the published findings of financial intelligence units and supervisory bodies.
- Documents first — an entry in an official register or a court file outranks a report of it. Where a record exists, we obtain the record and cite it.
- Corroboration — a claim resting on human sourcing needs independent support before it is published.
- Leaked material — a lead, not a conclusion. Leaked documents are checked for internal consistency and cross-referenced against registries and filings, and the public interest is weighed against privacy before anything is used.
- Automated matching — screening against sanctions and PEP lists produces candidates. A name match is not an identification, and no candidate reaches publication without a person confirming identity against source documents.
The threshold for naming
Naming a person or company in a laundering context can cause serious harm, and the bar is set accordingly. We name where the entity is the subject of a regulatory action, prosecution, designation or court finding; where its role is itself a matter of official record, such as a directorship, shareholding or registered address; or where the documentary evidence is strong enough to defend each specific claim made.
Where someone appears only as an associate, a namesake or an unconfirmed match, we do not name them. Family members, minors and victims are omitted unless their inclusion is necessary to the account.
Allegation, finding and inference
Three categories are kept distinct in the wording of every entry.
- Finding — a determination by a court, tribunal, regulator or statutory inquiry, attributed to the body that made it.
- Allegation — a claim by a party, including a charge or a pleading, attributed to its source and marked as untested.
- Inference — our own reading of the record, identified as ours, with the material it rests on set out.
Inclusion in a database on this site is not an accusation of criminal conduct. Politically exposed person status is a risk classification under the FATF recommendations and the regimes implementing them — the EU AMLD and AMLR framework, the UK Money Laundering Regulations, the US Bank Secrecy Act and their equivalents — and it signals a requirement for enhanced due diligence, not wrongdoing. The same holds for offshore incorporation, which is lawful in itself and reported here as structure, not as an offence.
Right of reply
Before publishing material critical of a named individual or company, we put the substance of it to them in writing and allow a reasonable period to reply, extended where the documents are complex. Responses are carried in full or summarised fairly alongside the material, and a refusal to comment is recorded without inference. Where a subject supplies documents that contradict our account, we check them and amend before publication rather than after.
Corrections and retractions
- Corrections — factual errors are fixed in place, with a dated note at the foot of the page.
- Amendments — where a change alters the substance of an entry, the note describes what changed and why.
- Retractions — where the basis for an entry fails, it is withdrawn and the page kept in place carrying an explanation, rather than deleted quietly. Anything derived from it is updated.
We do not remove accurate, properly sourced material because a subject would prefer it were not there, and we never charge a fee for removal or amendment. We do revisit entries when the underlying record changes — a conviction quashed, a designation lifted, a finding overturned on appeal. Corrections should go to support@amlreview.co with the page URL and the specific point at issue.
Confidential sources and secure contact
An undertaking of confidentiality, once given, is not withdrawn. Identifying material is held only as long as it is needed, kept apart from published work, and not disclosed to third parties. Contributors should not use employer devices or networks, and should not send us material they are under a legal obligation to withhold. First contact can be made at support@amlreview.co, preferably from a personal account; we will move to an encrypted channel before discussing anything sensitive.
Independence, conflicts and AI tooling
Contributors declare financial interests, professional relationships and prior employment relevant to what they cover, and stand aside where an interest is material. Advertising, sponsorship and donations carry no influence over coverage, and no entry is created, altered or removed on a commercial basis.
AI tooling is used for defined tasks: extracting structured fields from large document sets, translation, deduplication of records, and first drafts of summaries. It is not a source. Every model output that reaches publication is checked against the underlying document by a person, and any claim about a named entity is verified by hand before it appears.