This quick guide by Claudia Baez Camargo, Head of Governance Research, draws on Ms Baez Camargo's decades of research on social norms and their implications for anti-corruption practice. She explores:

• What is a social norm?
• How do social norms drive and perpetuate corrupt behaviour?
• The case of health facilities in East Africa
• How to identify social norms that drive corrupt behaviour
• What are the implications for anti-corruption practice?

And finally:

What exactly does international cooperation mean in the context of asset recovery? This is a wider question than many people think.

It also opens up further questions, such as not only how to return more stolen assets more quickly to victim countries, but how those returned assets can best be used to support sustainable development and strengthen criminal justice systems.

Learn more in this quick guide by Shane Nainappan, Senior Asset Recovery Specialist.

Someone once said that the more knowledge is freely shared, the more it grows. Our free eLearning courses on asset tracing, intelligence gathering and financial analysis exemplify this idea.

Peter Huppertz, Team Leader IT and eLearning, explains some of the benefits of online courses for financial investigators, analysts and others who need to acquire and practise these complex skills.

Practically every country has a Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) and it plays a vital role in combating money laundering and other financial crimes. Yet there is often confusion – even among anti-corruption authorities – about how it works, what it can and can’t do, and what value it brings. 

Thierry Ravalomanda, Senior Asset Recovery Specialist offers a quick overview.

Sophisticated and complex financial crimes span the globe. “Following the trail of the money” can involve many jurisdictions, each with their own laws and practices, and varying capacity or willingness to cooperate internationally.

Fighting corruption and money laundering, and recovering criminal proceeds, are therefore complex challenges. Specialised legal, financial accounting, analytical and investigation skills are essential.

This quick guide offers a short introduction to illicit enrichment laws, which are emerging as a powerful tool to combat corruption and recover stolen assets. Originally published in May 2019, it was updated in June 2021 following the Basel Institute’s publication of an open-access book on Illicit Enrichment: a Guide to Laws Targeting Unexplained Wealth.

Jacopo Costa, Senior Research Fellow, offers this quick guide to social network analysis (SNA). He explains how it can help us to better understand and tackle the transnational organised crime and dark networks that sustain corruption, money laundering and illicit trafficking. 

Gemma Aiolfi, Head of Compliance and Collective Action, explains that anti-corruption compliance doesn’t have to be complicated. Even small and mid-sized companies can easily build the basics of an effective anti-corruption compliance programme.

Find out five simple things a business leader can do to raise integrity in an organisation.

Manuel Medina, specialised Intelligence Analyst for our Illegal Wildlife Trade programme, sets out the basics of intelligence analysis and why we do it. Key questions are:

This quick guide to cryptocurrencies and money laundering investigations addresses the use of cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin or Monero to facilitate serious crimes or to launder stolen money. It was originally published in March 2019 and updated in August 2023.

It explores, in brief: