Financial Crime Investigations & Compliance Management

This course is a follow-on to NPTG 8621: Introduction to Money Laundering and Trade-Based Financial Crime. It is designed for students who wish to pursue a career related to financial crime detection and prevention, whether in the government sector, private sector or multilateral agency.

The first part of the course covers all the elements of shaping an institution's financial crime compliance program, including AML, FCPA, OFAC and FATCA compliance. Students will develop their own risk scoring methodology for geographic risk and customer risk. We will also look at AML regulations and enforcement in other countries around the world.

Students will examine at what a number of multilateral organizations are doing like the Basel Committee Guidance, Wolfsberg Group recommendations, FATF blacklists and FATF mutual evaluations.

Many case studies will also be examined – both cases of banks behaving badly, as well as international criminal investigations – shedding light on how financial crimes are brought to light and how law enforcement can best investigate and prosecute.

Finally, any well-structured compliance program also has a system for escalating alerts for further investigation and reporting. In this class, students will review how to find and assess sources of evidence, spot red flags, and identify beneficial owners. Financial crime investigators, whether they be in the private sector or public sector, must master not only research skills, but also analytical and writing skills. For the final assignment, students will learn how to write up a suspicious transaction report with actionable intelligence.