Two recent EU publications underscore the central role of corruption and money laundering in enabling organised crime and threatening security – and how essential it is to invest more in efforts to investigate, seize and confiscate criminal assets.
Europol’s 2025 Serious and Organised Crime Threat Assessment (SOCTA) painted a sobering picture of how organised crime is “evolving at an unprecedented pace”, with corruption and money laundering as key enablers.
Despite the increasing use of digital payment methods, cash is still king in many economies – including criminal economies. It remains the most-used payment option across Africa, the Middle East and Latin America, and accounted for over USD 7.6 trillion in consumer expenditures throughout 2022.
That’s a challenge when investigating financial crimes. How can you “follow the money” without records of bank transfers, debit or credit card payments, or digital wallet transactions?
This unique programme will give you a solid understanding of "following the money" and asset recovery as a tool to tackle financial crime.
State parties to the UN Convention Against Corruption are already obligated to identify, confiscate and return proceeds of corruption and money laundering that have entered their financial systems. As this often includes money stolen from states receiving development aid, maximising efforts to fulfil this obligation could offset some of the worst effects of recent aid cuts.
Congratulations to five talented individuals from Zambia’s law enforcement agencies and prosecution service, who have successfully completed the train-the-trainer programme of our International Centre for Asset Recovery (ICAR).
Vincent Danjean, Head of INTERPOL’s Cyberspace and New Technologies Laboratory, spends much of his time working on ways to help law enforcement keep up with evolving cyber threats. Among these: the use of crypto for organised crime and money laundering.
Improving the quality of intelligence we can extract from blockchain technologies could vastly increase our capacity to counter financial crimes involving crypto or virtual assets.
This Q&A builds on a first article on the concept of blockchain intelligence and practical use cases. This one focuses on the quality of current blockchain intelligence and the need for recognised standards and professional training to build capabilities in the public and private sectors.
