We are back!!! We have had a fantastic summer and some well-deserved time off to re-charge our batteries for a very exciting autumn. I really look forward to meeting our new customers and partners. This autumn will also have some exciting releases that have been under development that now will see daylight! I’m constantly amazed by the skilled colleges that I have the privilege to work with daily. So, keep your eyes out for new great stuff from us.
If you feel that you are in need to catch up some reading after this summer, there have been a few reports that are worth to glance at.
- “Acres of Money Laundering: Why U.S. Real Estate is a Kleptocrat’s Dream” From Global Financial Integrity.
- EIB Fraud Investigations Activity Report 2020 from the European Investment Bank
- Cryptocurrency Crime and Anti-Money Laundering Report, August 2021 from Ciphertrace.
- 2021 Trafficking in Persons Report from the US department of state.
A short take on the tragic developments in Afghanistan. In the space of what we do, we now monitor the situation from different angles. Are we going to see an increased presence of terror organisations? Are we going to see an increase in terrorist financing flowing to the region? The large number of displaced induvial not only suffer from threats from the Taliban’s, but criminality also flourishes in any conflict. Human traffickers exploit situations that lead to trafficking, slavery, exploitation, and many more vicious crimes. What will happen to the large heroin production in Afghanistan under a new government that may need money due to the asset freezes? The situation is currently evolving, and we simply do not know what the future will look like at this moment. But my heart goes out to all that is caught up and suffers from the situation.
To sum up this first update for this season… I hope you all are doing well! And I wish you all the best as we head into autumn and maybe winter… the IPCC report is hugely worrisome. As we all need to tackle a wicked problem like climate change, which is likely the biggest challenge we will face going forward, we also need to tackle other ongoing challenges that materialise in money laundering and terrorist financing. So, let’s dive straight in and catch some crooks!
