Money laundering and terrorism funding both have devastating effects. While acts of terrorism are more noticed because of their highly public nature, Money laundering is no less of a threat. In fact, concentrated efforts to combat money laundering were pursued long before terrorist activities grew to the point where Counter Terrorism Funding (CTF) was added to formal Anti–Money Laundering (AML) efforts.
To completely stop money laundering and terrorism funding is beyond our ability. For each action regulators and prevention specialists develop, criminals adopt new ways around it. An ongoing game of cat-and-mouse ensues, with each side constantly testing new ways...
Money laundering is a crime that many people consider irrelevant to them. If a problem at all, they consider it a problem only for banks. That is far from true. Money laundering has massive effects not only on financial institutions, but also on governments, industries, economies and all individuals.
What are the effects of these widespread crimes that fly under the radar of much of the population? And why are these effects so massive?
Understanding the economic cost
It’s hard to pin down a dollar amount for what money laundering costs the global economy. Normal economic activity measurements can’t track funds generated...
Many believe total anonymity is possible using privacy enhanced cryptocurrencies. It might not always be the case.
Are popular cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum private?
Absolutely not.
There are privacy enhancing tools and techniques that can be used to obscure crypto transactions, but in general most cryptocurrencies leave a very convenient trail to trace for investigators and law enforcement.
But not all cryptocurrencies are made the same.
This article will provide a brief overview of the most private cryptocurrencies, how they’re used for user privacy and sometimes to avoid detection of fraud or other cybercrimes, and how they can still be traced by professional...
Anti–Money Laundering (AML) and Counter Terrorist Funding (CTF) efforts involve the little-known world of Know Your Customer (KYC) and Customer Due Diligence (CDD) regulations. These involve an intensive review of account applications, resolute investigation to verify new customers’ information and ongoing monitoring of established customers’ transactions.
Working on KYC/CDD teams is not glamorous; many outside that world would consider it tedious. Yet the work of those teams provides financial institutions with their best defense against the possibility of money laundering or terrorist funding gaining a foothold among their assets and damaging their reputations or stability.
Reasons to fight money laundering and...
One key to fighting money laundering is understanding its process and the vulnerabilities in each stage of it. In the first stage, the Placement stage, money launderers deposit their criminal revenues in financial institutions.
In that stage, detection teams proficient in Know Your Customer (KYC)/Customer Due Diligence (CDD) practices for combatting money laundering do extensive investigations to detect efforts to place illicit funds in their financial institution. Unfortunately, many placements still succeed.
That moves the battle that KYC/CDD teams fight to the second money laundering stage, Layering. Layering involves building a complex web of money transfers to obscure the funds’ criminal...
How would you picture those who work to prevent weapons of mass destruction (WMD) from falling into the wrong hands? Would you picture them heavily armed and with a military bearing? Then you might be surprised.
Although such individuals sometimes fight the spread of WMD, the front lines feature a different type. The bulk of front-line defenders are less likely to have military backgrounds than financial ones.
That’s because the most vulnerable place to identify and block those who spread WMD is through their financial dealings. So, we look at the world of sanctions violations and proliferation financing to see how...
“Financial Crimes” is a term used to describe a variety of criminal acts including money laundering; terrorism financing; bribery; corruption; sanctions violations; proliferation financing; cyber financial crime; various types of fraud (securities fraud, insider trading, market manipulation, bank fraud, insurance fraud, payments fraud, health care fraud, medical fraud, credit card fraud, cheque fraud, corporate fraud, and other types of frauds and scams); and other crimes against property. In recent years, financial crimes have become a multi-billion dollar global phenomenon with criminal methodologies adapting and changing faster than governments, legislators, enforcement agencies and businesses can keep up. The associated risks...
The worlds of financial crime and cybercrime are colliding, converging into one. The biggest threat to businesses globally is the new cyber-enabled financial crime. Yet businesses and even financial institutions tasked with protecting our money continue to fight this combined threat with multiple separate defense systems and multiple separate defense teams.
The situation is like a military leader trying to fight different enemies on different fronts. While those enemies remain in different fronts, it makes sense to send separate defense forces against them, each focused on fighting only the enemy assigned to it. But what if those enemies merge and...
One key to fighting money laundering is understanding its process and the vulnerabilities in each stage of it. The first stage is Placement. Placement entails depositing illicit funds into financial institutions.
Several vulnerabilities lie in this stage. So, we look at it to see what questions money launderers must answer in this stage to overcome their vulnerabilities, and how detection teams skilled in Know Your Customer (KYC)/Customer Due Diligence (CDD) practices seek to exploit them.
How can we deposit large amounts of money?
During placement, money launderers have a sum of money of such magnitude that depositing it as a lump sum...