Identifying Proceeds from Human Trafficking

In a recent The Banker Podcast, our Alma Angotti shares her insight on how banks can use technology to identify the proceeds of crime, human trafficking, and human smuggling.

Financial institutions have significant responsibilities for financial crime, globally. In the Bank Secrecy Act for the US, it is required for financial institutions to detect and prevent money laundering, terrorist financing, and other kinds of financial crime. She mentions that one of the most important aspects is that banks need to “have a risk-based program to detect and report transactions that are related to violations of law and regulations.” These banks must look for transactions that might be related to criminal activity and cannot take a passive role; it is an active requirement.

One of the main issues of detecting financial transactions related to criminal activity is that it can be difficult to track. A lot of times those transactions can appear normal. However, there are methods and technology that can be used to help banks identify criminal behavior, such as matching to the databases of known sex trafficking organizations, machine learning, link analysis, and AI. 

Click on the link below to listen to the podcast and learn more information about this complex issue and ways to identify and help combat it.