RESEARCH TITLE: Forecasting the money laundering and terrorist financing risks of new and disruptive technologies

Abstract: New innovations such as distributed ledger technologies (cryptocurrencies), new payment methods and new financial services are revolutionising how people engage with money. Yet they are also enabling or enhancing criminal activity, with hastily drafted regulations often coming too late and usually doing more to stifle innovation than to prevent crime. This research uses empirical and innovative scientific research methods to understand these risks, trends and to devise possible prevention measures. These include two scoping reviews, a Delphi study, a crime scripting exercise and red teaming amongst expert stakeholders from relevant industries, such as Fintech and law enforcement.

About Arda – click here to [read more] Arda is a cryptocurrency threat analyst at a blockchain analytics company and is concurrently pursuing a PhD at the Jill Dando Institute of Security and Crime Science at UCL. His focus is on the money laundering and terrorist financing risks of new technologies, such as distributed ledger technology (cryptocurrencies), new payment methods and new financial services. His research is funded by the Dawes Centre for Future Crime at UCL and has involved collaborating with the UK Home Office Analysis and Insight (HOAI) and the National Crime Agency (NCA). He is also a teaching assistant at UCL, giving MSc lectures and tutorials on horizon scanning and research design.

He has also been a research assistant at the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organised Crime, working on the Enhancing Africa’s response to Transnational Organised Crime (ENACT) project, as well as contributing to data collection and research on organised crime in Latin America and the West Balkans. He holds an MSc degree in Countering Organised Crime and Terrorism, also from UCL, where his past research has looked closer into preventing overseas terrorist financing methods across diaspora communities. Besides volunteering in such diaspora communities, he has also advised and authored reports involving these matters for two political parties in Turkey, a country affected by separatist terrorism financed substantially from abroad.

Arda is bilingual in both English and Turkish and is intermediate in German. He holds a BSc degree in Politics of the International Economy from King’s College London.[/read]

Graduate teaching assistant in: Research design, Horizon scanning, Foundations of Security & Crime Science