Isn’t it shocking for regulatory authorities and businesses that over 90 % of money laundering activities are not detected in the first place?
It is, and the more shocking is the amount that is laundered every year.
Nearly 5 % of global GDP is laundered every year, and IC3 reports that criminal committing cybercrime laundered almost 10 billion dollar in one year back in 2022.
Are all these stats, figures and real life examples means the, Compliance efforts in place are no longer efficient in detecting the suspicious transaction, or this is criminals’ smartness that let them move the money without the fear of detecting?
Making a statement that the compliance efforts are not efficient wouldn’t work in fight against money laundering. Because there still are many organizations not following the AML regulations.
the 56 billion dollar fines to organization and companies for not complying with the regulations highlights the vulnerabilities within the organizations.
It can not be denied that, despite various regulations and laws intact, there still is a room for improvements in anti-money laundering efforts and one such is lack of usage of advance information gathering and processing process.
So, when we talk about advancement, the OSINT Framework has emerged as the major force in gathering information and making the monitoring and detection process easy using advanced tactics.
The following piece will discuss how the OSINT industry footprint could be beneficial in collecting data from different open sources and then implementing strategies to combat money laundering.
Understanding the OSINT Framework
Generally, when we speak about gathering information for spying or investigation, Open source intelligence is used to gather information from different publicly available sources.
Who uses the information gathering through the OSINT framework?
Though any organization and business can use this, It’s often used by organizations, investigators, and analysts. And the source they use is accessible to everyone.
They collect publicly available over the internet.
social media platform, news articles from renowned publishers, relevant blog content, public records from government and investigative entities, and some other publicly accessible information.
Lets understand it with an example; Imagine you want to learn about a company. Using OSINT, you might look at their website, read news articles about them, check their social media profiles, and search for any public records related to the company.
By gathering and analyzing this information, you can create a detailed understanding of the company without needing insider access.
OSINT Techniques that could be beneficial for Anit Money Laundering
No matter how many challenges there are in fighting against money laundering, the solution is always there to counter such challenges and difficulties.
Open source intelligence is a tool that could be beneficial in enhancing compliance efforts and organization capabilities for combating money laundering.
Let’s find out some OSINT ways to implement robust anti-money laundering regulations.
- Online Presence Traces
Since the emergence of social media platform and their access usage have become a part of everyone’s life.
People unintentionally leave some important leads for the agencies and investigators by sharing photos, sharing locations, and letting people know about your activities.
Here comes the OSINT tools that make the connection between the footprints one leaves over the internet and provide the analytics that could be beneficial for institutions to combat money laundering and terrorist financing crimes.
- Messaging Platform Inspection
Will Money launderers use messaging platforms like Facebook and WhatsApp? No they won’t.
They will find apps that provide anonymity, such as Telegram.
But the interesting fact is that open source intelligence has the capability to get content information, go deeper, and get insight into the situation that could relate to the launderers and fraud.
Though the process is quite complicated, but it could be achieved by OSINT searching using the specific keywords, ID and by detecting the particular group.
- Advance Transaction Monitoring
To some people, it might be not possible to detect every transaction, even that performed years ago, to make a connection with the money laundering activities.
However, with OSINT tools, this is possible. You can get public records available on the websites to identify the entities engaged in money laundering activities.
Deep Web Monitoring
The information that is not available over the normal web pages could be accessed from the deep web, also known as the dark web. It is the real platform for criminal information.
However, the information is not accessible to everyone and is not available in general ways. However, OSINT techniques and tools can be used to get information even from the dark web. In addition, utilizing Solana RPC (Remote Procedure Call) can help institutions monitor transactions across blockchain networks. By integrating Solana RPC, investigators can access real-time blockchain data, enhancing their ability to track suspicious activities linked to money laundering.
Data could be collected from the criminal marketplace to gather the information and generate insights that make links with the criminals.
And you know what is more interesting? Even content that has been deleted and is no longer available on the internet could be accessed on the dark web.
No matter what sort of business you are running, complying with the AML regulations is must, avoiding can cause organziations millions of dollar fines and penalties plus the reputational damage.
