By EUROPOL and the Basil Institute of Governance

These recommendations follow the 7th Global Conference on Criminal Finances and Cryptocurrencies on 26–27 October 2023. The conference was co-organised by Europol and the Basel Institute on Governance and took place in hybrid format at Europol’s headquarters in The Hague, Netherlands. The Recommendations highlight broad approaches and best practices to prevent and combat the use of crypto assets and services to make, hide and launder illicit money. The five recommendations highlight the need for accelerated action in order to combat the use of crypto assets, as well the allocation of more resources, better training and better collaboration.

They are to:

Accelerate innovation for investigative and monitoring tools

Boost enforcement capacity and training

Reorganise to foster collaboration and prioritisation

Engage proactively in multi-sector collaborations

Consider the whole chain, from prevention to facilitators

Basel, SWIT: Basel Institute of Governance, 2024. 7p.

By Queensland Crime and Corruption Commission

New and emerging technologies, like remote working using video and online technologies, generative artificial intelligence (AI) to speed up the delivery of services or undertake administrative tasks, and using social media to reach a wider audience are now common practice across the public sector. While advancements in technology and innovations in public service delivery are helping the public sector to deliver more efficient and effective services, they also increase fraud related risks by making it more difficult for fraudulent conduct to be detected, investigated, and prosecuted. This is because advanced technology can offer anonymity, psychological distance, speed and efficiency, and personalisation not seen before. This combined with current economic conditions, such as the rising cost of living, may increase the motivation for fraud by public sector employees or contractors. While technological advancements are changing almost all aspects of fraud, the CCC’s corruption work has identified three areas that are particularly prone to technology-related fraud threats: • procurement • recruitment • grant funding, regulation, and licensing.

State of Queensland: Queensland Crime and Corruption Commission, 2024. 4p.

By Alan Doig, Michael Levi, and Jodie Luker

In 2023, the UK government issued a national Fraud Strategy in response to concerns over increases in reported fraud and the low levels of law enforcement resources available to investigate cases. The Strategy was announced as a fundamental shift in how the government intended to respond to frauds and attempted frauds against individuals. The article focusses on the evidence base that may be assumed to underpin and shape any strategy by assessing and analysing the data what would have been available at the time the Strategy was drafted.The article argues that the Strategy has not taken any time to explore past strategies and any lessons to be learned and nor did it appear to substantively accessed, used, analysed and interpreted the available data, and nor used that data as an evidence base to develop an approach will have to be strategic, prioritised and innovative. The article concludes that, in strategic terms, the Strategy may be unlikely to achieve its objectives.

Security Journal (2025) 38:8

By Matt Weidinger | Amy Simon

Key Points

• The nation’s unemployment benefits system, which was significantly expanded during the COVID-19 pandemic, suffered unprecedented losses to fraud and improper payments.

• Official—and still partial—estimates of improper payments approach $200 billion, while unofficial estimates suggest $400 billion or more may have been lost.

• There are multiple causes of these record improper payments, including historically large benefits, poor program design including eligibility self-certification in new programs, and degraded administrative systems without adequate defenses against various fraudulent schemes.

• State and federal policymakers should review the causes and consequences of these unprecedented losses and take specific steps, such as those outlined in this report, to both prevent a recurrence of the record taxpayer losses experienced during the pandemic and better establish a proactive anti-fraud posture for the unemployment insurance system.

Washington, DC: American Enterprise Institute, 2024. 45p.

By Miguel A. Mascarúa Lara

How does imperfect law enforcement affect drug trafficking, predation on firms, informality, and aggregate production? To quantify it, a general equilibrium occupational model is developed in which there is room for drug trafficking, crime against businesses, and tax evasion in the presence of imperfect institutions. Detailed micro-level data on business victimization and cartels in Mexico are used to calibrate the model. It is found that the imperfect application of the law generates considerable losses in production derived from a misallocation of occupations and resources. Finally, using counterfactual simulations, the effects of policies that seek to improve the allocation of resources are calculated. With complete law enforcement in the illegal drug market, the workers in that sector would relocate to the productive sector, and aggregate production would increase. Without crimes against businesses, which would allow a reallocation of work, capital, and occupations to the formal sector, production would increase even more. However, the largest effects come from a decrease in informality

Banco de México Working Papers N° 2022-16 . Mexico City, Bank of Mexico, 2022. 55p.

By Keith Finlay, Elizabeth Luh, Matthew Gross and Michael Mueller-Smith.

  We estimate the causal impact of financial sanctions in the U.S. criminal justice system. We utilize a regression discontinuity design and exploit two distinct natural experiments: the abrupt introduction of driver responsibility fees (DRF) in Michigan and Texas. These discontinuously imposed additional surcharges ($300–$6,000) for criminal traffic offenses. Although the policies generated almost $3 billion of debt, we find consistent evidence that the DRFs had no impact on recidivism, earnings, or romantic partners’ outcomes over the next decade. Without evidence of a general or specific deterrence effect and modest success with debt collection, we find little justification for these policies.

Unpublished paper, 2022. 47p.