Agenda, recordings and downloads
Day 1 of the 5th Global Conference on Cryptocurrencies and Criminal Finances
This event took place virtually on 7 December 2021. It was opened by Gretta Fenner, Managing Director of the Basel Institute on Governance. Please see below for links to video recordings and presentation slides where available.
| Speaker | Presentation | Recordings and links |
|---|---|---|
| You Jung-Kee, INTERPOL, Federico Paesano, Basel Institute on Governance and Borja Pastor, Europol | Setting the scene. How the Global Conference on Criminal Finances and Cryptocurrencies emerged and evolved from a tripartite partnership among INTERPOL, Europol and the Basel Institute on Governance, and where it is going. Setting the scene for the conference, bringing together different perspectives on virtual assets-based money laundering and crypto-enabled crimes over two days. | View the recording on YouTube |
| Nathan Catania, XReg Consulting | Taming the wild west: Virtual asset international regulatory developments. This session will delve into the key AML/CFT regulatory developments in the VA/VASP industry, including the latest FATF guidance for VAs and VASPs. | |
| Ian Lee, Merkle Science | How criminals are using DeFi for illicit activity. With all the promises of the financial frontier, criminals are finding new ways to use DeFi to launder money. In this session, we will explore the why, the how, and what companies can do. | |
| Maxim Kon, Cheksy | NFTs - The ultimate money laundering tool? Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) provide many interesting use cases for good as well as for bad purposes. However due to the transparency of blockchains, criminals really should think twice before using NFTs. Here's why. | |
| Nils Andersen-Röed, Binance | 1 + 1 = 3. The need for enhanced cooperation between the public and private sector in the fight against crypto crime. | Download the presentation slides |
| Joana Neto, European Banking Authority | AML/CFT risks, virtual currencies and the European supervisory response: "as is" vs "to be". In the European Banking Authority’s (EBA) biennial “Opinion on risks of ML/TF affecting the EU’s financial sector”, published in March 2021, most authorities designated as competent for AML/CFT supervision of financial institutions assessed virtual currencies as presenting significant emerging ML/TF risks in their jurisdictions. This presentation will explore, on the one hand, supervisors’ perceptions of the ML/TF risks associated with virtual currencies and, on the other hand, how European regulatory and supervisory efforts have evolved to balance the opportunities and risks arising from their use. More info on the EBA’s website and by signing up to a quarterly EBA newsletter on the latest AML/CFT developments. | |
| Christine McAteer, SIX Digital Exchange (SDX) and Seyra Dagadu, Investigative Lawyer | DeFi: Understanding financial crime risks and countermeasures in decentralised finance. Peer into the world of DeFi, understand where the risks for laundering and illicit activity arise and learn about the services available to support AML compliance and law enforcement. |
Download the presentation slides, including Q&A |
|
Scott Johnston, Chainalysis |
Fighting COVID-related fraud through Blockchain intelligence. The COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated again how criminals are always in search of new ways to defraud government lending, disaster recovery and benefits programmes. Increasingly, criminals are exploiting cryptocurrency to exfiltrate and disguise the movement of stolen funds. Although cryptocurrency provides a means to investigate and reduce benefit fraud, government organisations have found they often lack the tools to seek and identify cryptocurrency wallets associated with fraud rings. A generic case study will demonstrate what methods are being utilised to facilitate this type of crime. The presentation will also examine the wider impact and links to known money laundering entities to help government organisations maintain mission focus and respond to fraudulent benefit claims more quickly. | |
| Pamela Clegg, CipherTrace | How cryptocurrency intelligence aids ransomware investigations. Cryptocurrencies have proven to be a lucrative modus operandi for criminal groups and state actors looking to launder funds and evade sanctions. Cryptocurrency intelligence products, like those from CipherTrace, can remove the financial incentives from ransomware perpetrators without risking brute force attacks. Using examples from major ransomware attacks, Pamela will show how investigators were able to utilise blockchain analysis tools to follow the illicit flow of funds and see exactly how bad actors moved stolen crypto to VASPS and, eventually, banks. |
Download the presentation slides, including Q&A |
| Aidan Larkin, Asset Reality | Demystifying crypto asset recovery. Whilst many law enforcement agencies around the world are recovering vast amounts of crypto assets, many still struggle to capitalise on this emerging sector and miss opportunities to disrupt criminality, identify illicit financial flows and recover assets for the benefit of victims and wider society. This presentation will look at the common international best practice in crypto asset recovery and delve into case studies highlighting the art of the possible in this rapidly evolving space. |