The world is changing faster than ever before, and criminals have an incredible ability to adapt to new technologies and methods. PET’s task is not only to react but also to be proactive in understanding and countering these threats. A crucial aspect is understanding trends in economic crime. Understanding how criminals exploit cryptocurrencies, hidden money transfers, and digital platforms to finance their activities without being detected. It is a challenge to keep up with their innovations, a challenge that PET and society are determined to win.
AI in the Fight Against Crime
Artificial intelligence is on the brink of revolutionizing or transforming virtually everything in society, including the approach to combating crime. From pattern recognition to behavioral analysis, AI enables the spotting of patterns and connections that human analysts might never have discovered. But it is also important to understand that AI is not a magic solution. It requires constant monitoring, fine-tuning, and ethical handling to ensure that its superpowers are used in a fair and rule-of-law manner.
When discussing creativity from criminal minds, it is important to remember that the creativity of law enforcement and authorities must be even sharper. PET must think like them to understand their possible moves and strategies, but at the same time, the work must be based on a foundation of ethics and legality. The work on economic crime is not just about catching criminals. It is also about safeguarding democratic and constitutionally guaranteed rights, protecting society, and our values.
Financial Institutions Impose Policies and Rules
Cross-border activities play a central role in these harmful practices. They do so because criminal actors exploit differences between countries’ laws, regulations, and surveillance mechanisms. These activities include money laundering, tax evasion, fraud, corruption, and terrorism financing. For example, criminals can exploit financial institutions and systems in different countries to conceal their tracks and avoid detection.
Therefore, financial institutions are also subject to more and more policies and rules. These rules are designed to make it difficult to commit crimes while making it easier for authorities to trace the many digital fingerprints left in an increasingly complex technological world.
This underscores the importance of having a global perspective and working together across borders to combat these threats. It requires further harmonization of laws and procedures, strengthening of financial surveillance, and investment in technological capacity to trace and identify suspicious transactions.
We are all part of this battle, a collective journey toward a safer future.
The fight against economic crime was discussed at Nobly Talks 2023.
Keynote Speaker at Nobly Talks 2023, Anders Vogelsang from PET, delved into and enlightened us on how PET works in the battle against economic crime and terrorism financing.
