Elisa de Anda Madrazo
President, FATF
Cybersecurity is not enough. To defeat cybercrime, we should use financial intelligence to find and disrupt criminal networks and take back stolen money.
Cybercrimes, like cyber-enabled fraud and ransomware, are now among the most profitable crimes globally. New technologies let criminals target and hide from victims worldwide, disrupting essential services and causing major economic losses. These crimes also facilitate serious offences like human trafficking and terrorism, severely impacting victims’ lives and livelihoods.
Financial intelligence can combat transnational cybercrime
The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) — the global body combatting money laundering and terrorist financing — routinely issues studies on trends and methods that criminals use to launder proceeds of crime.
A report1 published last year by FATF, INTERPOL and the Egmont Group of Financial Intelligence Units demonstrates how cyber-enabled crime is a transnational organised crime, with syndicates organised around distinct sub-groups with specialised areas of criminal expertise. Within these, money laundering groups are creating complex networks to move illicit funds that are rapidly laundered across multiple jurisdictions and sectors.
Another report2 on ransomware describes the financial mechanisms used in these attacks, predominantly through misuse of virtual assets sent to countries with weak or non-existent anti-money laundering controls.
We must better connect national
centres for reporting financial crime.
Following the money
Breaking the financial networks targets the lifeblood of criminal enterprises and reduces the incentives by making sure that crime doesn’t pay. Operational experts must quickly freeze and seize funds before they are dissipated. We must better connect national centres for reporting financial crime to ensure a faster and better-coordinated response.
The need for speed and international collaboration has been a challenge for law enforcement authorities in all countries. Criminals use new technologies to carry out illegal activities and hide their ill-gotten gains. Public authorities should also use new technologies to fight financial crime.
That is why the FATF has recently agreed on major reforms to its international standards to provide stronger legal tools to recover stolen assets and return them to victims. The Task Force will support countries to implement these reforms and will assess the effectiveness of measures put in place.
Work also continues in other areas to help reduce incentives for cyber-enabled crimes. This includes ensuring that measures preventing money laundering activities also apply to the crypto-asset sector and updates to the rules on payment transparency to adapt to the evolution of payment systems. These updates aim to make cross-border payments safer and more inclusive. Countries should make tracking illicit financial flows a key pillar of national cybercrime disruption and prevention.
[1] Illicit Financial Flows from Cyber-enabled Fraud (fatf-gafi.org)
[2] Countering Ransomware Financing (fatf-gafi.org)
