Intro to Financial Intel

3 Credits · Level: Graduate, Undergraduate

Money plays a central role in all criminal and other illicit activity, and disrupting threat actors’ financial operations depends on financial intelligence. This course examines the types of information, data, and methods investigators and analysts use to support investigations and inform policy decisions and actions. The first section of the course explores the nodes, enablers, mechanisms, and indicators of illicit financial activity and financial crime as well as the vulnerabilities of threat actors’ financial operations to provide a baseline understanding of the challenges of following the money. The second section examines the development of international standards and U.S. legal authorities for countering money laundering and other criminal and illicit financial activity and the types of information used to implement and enforce laws and regulations. The course gives special emphasis to the role open-source information can play in financial intelligence. The third section of the course explores financial intelligence techniques and best practices and the importance of international, domestic, and public-private sector collaboration.