Digital assets and online platforms have transformed how value is transferred—but they have also created new opportunities for criminals to conceal, move, and integrate illicit proceeds. This session examines how cryptocurrency, non-fungible tokens (NFTs), darknet marketplaces, mixers, privacy-enhancing technologies, and cross-chain transactions may be exploited in money laundering schemes.

Participants will explore common laundering methods, emerging typologies, and the connections between on-chain activity and dark-web ecosystems. The session will also highlight practical red flags, investigative approaches, and compliance controls that financial institutions, digital-asset businesses, and law enforcement can use to identify suspicious activity, trace illicit funds, and strengthen their response to digitally enabled financial crime.

By the end of this session, participants will be able to:

1. Explain how criminals use cryptocurrency, NFTs, and dark-web platforms during the placement, layering, and integration of illicit proceeds.
2. Identify red flags associated with darknet marketplaces, mixers, privacy coins, chain-hopping, cross-chain bridges, and suspicious NFT transactions.
3. Assess how blockchain analytics, open-source intelligence, and traditional financial data can be combined to trace transactions and attribute illicit activity.
4. Apply risk-based investigative and compliance practices to detect, escalate, document, and report suspected digital money laundering.

As financial transactions become faster, more complex, and increasingly digital, traditional rules-based monitoring systems may struggle to identify evolving money-laundering activity. Artificial intelligence and machine learning can strengthen financial crime programs by analyzing large volumes of data, detecting unusual behavior, uncovering hidden relationships, and helping investigators prioritize higher-risk alerts.

This session explores how financial institutions are applying AI and machine learning across transaction monitoring, customer risk assessment, sanctions screening, network analysis, and investigative workflows. Participants will examine practical use cases, the advantages and limitations of these technologies, and the importance of human oversight. The discussion will also address data quality, explainability, model bias, validation, governance, privacy, and regulatory expectations to help organizations use AI responsibly and effectively.

By the end of this session, participants will be able to:

1. Explain how AI and machine-learning models can complement traditional rules-based AML monitoring and investigative processes.
2. Identify practical applications of AI in transaction monitoring, customer risk assessment, network analysis, alert prioritization, and suspicious-activity investigations.
3. Evaluate the limitations and risks associated with AI, including poor data quality, model bias, false positives, limited explainability, privacy concerns, and model drift.
4. Apply essential governance principles—including human oversight, model validation, documentation, performance monitoring, and clear accountability—to the responsible use of AI in AML programs.

1. Explain how criminals use generative AI, deepfakes, voice cloning and automation to enhance traditional scam techniques.
2. Identify emerging typologies and red flags associated with AI-enabled impersonation, investment, romance and business email compromise scams.
3. Evaluate how synthetic identities, manipulated media and rapidly evolving payment methods create challenges for fraud and AML controls.
4. Apply practical strategies to improve detection, escalation, investigations and customer protection.
5. Recognize opportunities for cross-functional and public-private collaboration to disrupt scam networks and trace illicit proceeds.

1. Identify significant regulatory developments and enforcement trends shaping the current AML compliance landscape.
2. Assess how evolving regulatory expectations may affect risk assessments, customer due diligence, transaction monitoring, investigations, and suspicious activity reporting.
3. Recognize common weaknesses identified through regulatory examinations and enforcement actions.
4. Apply practical best practices to strengthen governance, documentation, controls, training, testing, and regulatory readiness.
5. Develop strategies for monitoring regulatory change and incorporating new requirements into a sustainable, risk-based AML compliance program.

1. Distinguish among malicious, compromised, negligent, and unwitting insiders, as well as professionals who knowingly or unknowingly facilitate money laundering.
2. Identify behavioral, transactional, and organizational warning signs associated with insider threats and professional enablers.
3. Explain how trusted access, specialized expertise, control overrides, and legitimate business structures can be exploited to conceal illicit activity.
4. Apply risk-based controls—including due diligence, access management, monitoring, internal reporting, investigations, and escalation—to detect and mitigate human-enabled financial crime.
5. Evaluate how compliance, legal, human resources, cybersecurity, audit, and business teams can collaborate while respecting privacy, employment, and legal considerations.

Money laundering and terrorist financing often involve similar methods for moving and concealing funds, but they differ in important ways. Money laundering generally seeks to disguise the criminal origins of illicit proceeds, while terrorist financing may involve funds derived from either legitimate or illegal sources and is ultimately defined by their intended use. These differences can create distinct challenges for detection, investigation, risk assessment, and reporting.

This session will examine where money laundering and terrorist financing converge—and where traditional AML assumptions may fall short. Participants will explore common funding sources, movement methods, financial and behavioral indicators, and the potential misuse of financial institutions, money services businesses, charities, informal value-transfer systems, trade, cash, and digital assets. Through practical examples, the discussion will highlight how organizations can integrate AML and counter-terrorist financing controls while recognizing the distinct indicators and intelligence needs associated with each threat.

By the end of this session, participants will be able to:

1. Distinguish money laundering from terrorist financing based on the source, movement, concealment, and intended use of funds.
2. Identify common methods and risk indicators shared by money laundering and terrorist-financing networks.
3. Recognize terrorist-financing indicators that may not align with traditional AML expectations, including the use of legitimate funds and low-value transactions.
4. Assess how financial institutions, charities, informal value-transfer systems, trade channels, cash, and digital assets may be exploited for either activity.
5. Apply risk-based monitoring, investigation, escalation, and reporting practices that address both shared and threat-specific risks.

Real estate, luxury vehicles, fine art, jewelry, precious metals, and other high-value assets can provide criminals with an attractive means of converting, concealing, and transferring illicit wealth. These markets often involve large transaction amounts, subjective valuations, complex ownership structures, intermediaries, and cross-border payments - features that can make the true source of funds and beneficial owner difficult to identify.

This session will examine how criminals and professional money-laundering networks exploit high-value asset markets through methods such as shell companies, third-party purchases, cash transactions, rapid resales, manipulated valuations, and opaque financing arrangements. It will also explore the compliance challenges faced by financial institutions, real estate professionals, dealers, auction houses, and other businesses involved in these transactions.

Attendees will learn how to recognize suspicious activity, conduct effective customer and beneficial ownership due diligence, evaluate source of funds and source of wealth, and apply a risk-based approach to monitoring high-value transactions. The session will also review evolving regulatory expectations and international efforts to strengthen transparency and prevent luxury asset markets from becoming safe havens for illicit proceeds.

By the end of this session, participants will be able to:

1. Understand how criminals use real estate, luxury goods, and other high-value assets to conceal, transfer, and legitimize illicit funds.
2. Identify key red flags, transaction patterns, and vulnerabilities associated with high-value asset purchases and sales.
3. Recognize the roles played by shell companies, intermediaries, third-party buyers, and complex payment arrangements.
4. Apply effective due diligence, source-of-funds, source-of-wealth, and beneficial ownership controls.
5. Examine global regulatory developments and enforcement efforts targeting financial crime in these industries.

Shell companies and offshore accounts can serve legitimate business, investment, and asset-management purposes. However, criminals, corrupt officials, sanctions evaders, and tax offenders may exploit their opacity to conceal beneficial ownership, disguise the origins of illicit funds, and move value across jurisdictions. Layers of legal entities, nominee arrangements, trusts, and intermediary accounts can make it difficult for financial institutions and investigators to determine who ultimately owns, controls, or benefits from a transaction.

This session will examine how shell companies and offshore financial structures are used to facilitate money laundering and other financial crimes. Participants will explore common typologies, beneficial-ownership challenges, jurisdictional risks, and transactional and documentary warning signs. The discussion will also highlight practical methods for connecting entities, accounts, intermediaries, and individuals by combining customer due diligence, financial records, corporate registries, open-source intelligence, and cross-border information sharing.

By the end of this session, participants will be able to:

1. Distinguish legitimate shell companies and offshore arrangements from structures exhibiting indicators of concealment or financial crime.
2. Explain how criminals use layered entities, nominee owners and directors, trusts, and offshore accounts to obscure beneficial ownership and the movement of funds.
3. Identify customer, transactional, geographic, and documentary red flags associated with potentially illicit corporate structures.
4. Apply investigative techniques and information sources to uncover connections among entities, accounts, intermediaries, and ultimate beneficial owners.
5. Strengthen risk-based due diligence, ongoing monitoring, escalation, documentation, and suspicious activity reporting involving complex or opaque ownership structures.