How can emerging technologies facilitate the flows of illicit finance?

Background

Alongside the more specific categories for further research, there are some cross-cutting themes where the research questions and gaps are relevant across economic crime as a whole.

This includes how best to understand and respond to the threat as technology develops quickly. For example, how might this technology development influence the response required. There are also gaps in the best research methods to understand economic crime as a whole; for example, around best identification and utilisation of suitable data sources.

Finally, horizon scanning is crucial to maintaining sight of how the threat may evolve and how best to prepare for mitigating that in the future.

Source

This question was published as part of the set of ARIs in this document:

Economic Crime Areas of Research Interest ARI report July 2025 1

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Related UKRI funded projects


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    The project specifically addresses how online technologies are being used by organised crime groups to facilitate illicit finance.

  • FinTech digital solution to prevent online payments to criminal traders

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    The project focuses on preventing online payments to criminal traders, which is a partial aspect of how emerging technologies facilitate illicit finance.

  • RedFlag - A revolutionary AI powered platform to detect financial crime

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    The project introduces an AI platform to detect financial crime, which is a partial aspect of how emerging technologies facilitate illicit finance.

  • Identifying Money Laundering On The Blockchain

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  • The (Mis)Use of Corporate Vehicles by Transnational Organised Crime Groups in the Concealment, Conversion and Control of Illicit Finance

    Transnational organised crime groups and the difficulties in intervening with illicit finances have been identified as a high-priority concern by the UK government (see Serious and Organised Crime Strategy (SOCS) (2013))...

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  • The Financial Aspects of the Trade in Counterfeit Products: An Exploratory Study

    The trade in counterfeit goods is growing and has been linked to the operations of transnational organised crime (TOC). Much work and popular scrutiny has examined these flows of illicit goods. Less scrutinised are the f...

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