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Risk Academy, led by the Nexus Consortium · Finance and Economics · Department of Banking and Financial Stability

Money laundering, sanctions, fraud, identity crime and risk-based monitoring

Financial crime and fraud

Financial crime and fraud covers money laundering, terrorist financing, sanctions evasion, fraud and scams, identity fraud and cyber-enabled financial crime, and the risk-based controls that detect and prevent them.

01Scope

What the discipline covers

The subtopics its courses and labs teach.

Courses
In preparation
Levels
In development
Labs
In development
  • Money laundering
  • Terrorist financing
  • Sanctions compliance
  • Fraud and scams
  • Identity fraud
  • Cyber-enabled financial crime
  • Suspicious activity monitoring
  • Beneficial ownership

Courses in development extend the scope to one further subject: Anti-money laundering and sanctions controls.

02Maps

Build a twin of any place

Search any place or open the world; the layers and generators follow financial crime and fraud on the planet map, the globe and in 3D.

Houston and the Ship Channel: a flat plan of the faculty twin. Terrain 0 to 66 m; 30 power plants, 11,875 MW; 7 refineries and chemical works; 2 port land; 29 named works; 154 named industrial sites; Surface water extent, OPERA DSWx (HLS): read live when the 3D twin opens; Built-up and settlement extent, HBASE 2010: read live when the 3D twin opens. Contours every 10 metres from the elevation grid; power plants as marks; refineries, terminals and industrial sites as marks.
Houston and the Ship Channel, United States. Flat plan of the same data: relief as contours from the inline grid, the plants by capacity, the industrial points by kind and the numbers below. The 3D twin opens on devices that can draw it, once its data and code have been checked.
  • Terrain 0 to 66 m
  • 30 power plants, 11,875 MW
  • 7 refineries and chemical works
  • 2 port land
  • 29 named works
  • 154 named industrial sites
  • Surface water extent, OPERA DSWx (HLS): read live when the 3D twin opens
  • Built-up and settlement extent, HBASE 2010: read live when the 3D twin opens
Credits and dates per layer are listed under the stage. Relief in the twin is exaggerated ×1.5 for legibility.

Drag to move, right drag or Shift with a drag to turn and tilt, Ctrl with the wheel to zoom. Keyboard: arrows move, Shift with arrows turn and tilt, + and – zoom, 0 resets, V steps through the views, Escape clears.

Flat plan of the same data: relief as contours from the inline grid, the plants by capacity, the industrial points by kind and the numbers below. The 3D twin opens on devices that can draw it, once its data and code have been checked.

The boundaries, names and designations shown do not imply any judgement on the legal status of any territory, or any endorsement or acceptance of such boundaries. Countries: Natural Earth (public domain).

03Live map

Activity and exposure in the Gulf of Mexico coast

Night-time lights and population, a proxy for economic activity, with the floods and fires that put assets at risk, over the Gulf of Mexico coast.

The interactive map needs JavaScript; the layer list and sources are below.

Layers 2

Activity and exposure

Latest available

NASA GIBS / EOSDIS · ASTER GDEM (METI, NASA) · Blue Marble (NASA) · © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL) · Natural Earth

Loading the latest NASA imagery.

Drag to move. Ctrl or ⌘ and scroll, pinch or the buttons to zoom; hover for the values under the pointer; reset returns to the region.

Activity and exposure, framed on the Gulf of Mexico coast.Satellite and model products as NASA publishes them, each with its own date. They are indicators, not assessments of any place.

Data: NASA GIBS · ASTER GDEM · Blue Marble · © OpenStreetMap contributors · Natural Earth · NASA EONETSources and licences

  • We acknowledge the use of imagery provided by services from NASA's Global Imagery Browse Services (GIBS), part of NASA's Earth Science Data and Information System (ESDIS). Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into H3 cells where shown (modified). NASA open data
  • We acknowledge the use of imagery provided by services from NASA's Global Imagery Browse Services (GIBS), part of NASA's Earth Science Data and Information System (ESDIS). Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into H3 cells where shown (modified). NASA open data
  • VIIRS Black Marble night-time lights, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center; distributed by the NASA Level-1 and Atmosphere Archive and Distribution System (LAADS DAAC); imagery via NASA GIBS. Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into H3 cells where shown (modified). NASA open data
  • Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN), Columbia University. 2018. Gridded Population of the World, Version 4 (GPWv4): Population Density, Revision 11. NASA Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC). Licensed under CC BY 4.0. Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into H3 cells where shown (modified). doi:10.7927/H49C6VHW. CC BY 4.0
  • VIIRS near-real-time products (flood, land surface temperature, snow cover, corrected reflectance), NASA LANCE; imagery via NASA GIBS. Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into H3 cells where shown (modified). NASA open data
  • NASA Fire Information for Resource Management System (FIRMS), VIIRS 375 m active fire product, NASA LANCE; vector tiles via NASA GIBS. Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into H3 cells where shown (modified). NASA open data
  • ASTER GDEM is a product of METI and NASA (ASTER Global Digital Elevation Model V003, NASA LP DAAC); imagery via NASA GIBS. Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into H3 cells where shown (modified). Cite as: NASA/METI/AIST/Japan Spacesystems and U.S./Japan ASTER Science Team (2019). ASTER Global Digital Elevation Model V003. doi:10.5067/ASTER/ASTGTM.003. NASA open data
  • Made with Natural Earth. Free vector and raster map data @ naturalearthdata.com. Public domain
  • © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL), via NASA GIBS (coastlines, boundaries, roads and place names). Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into H3 cells where shown (modified). ODbL
  • Blue Marble, NASA Earth Observatory; imagery via NASA GIBS. Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into H3 cells where shown (modified). NASA open data
  • Context on the globe and flat map: coastlines, boundaries, roads and place names from NASA GIBS reference layers (OpenStreetMap data, ODbL, © OpenStreetMap contributors); Blue Marble imagery as an optional base; 3D terrain and the elevation read-out from the ASTER GDEM elevation colour index (5 m to 200 m classes, exaggerated for legibility). Boundaries are drawn as published and imply no position on any territory.
  • Globe: MapLibre GL JS 6.9.1, BSD-3-Clause, © MapLibre contributors.
  • Live events: NASA Earth Observatory Natural Event Tracker (EONET); events are indicative and keep their original source links.
  • NASA GIBS: We acknowledge the use of imagery provided by services from NASA's Global Imagery Browse Services (GIBS), part of NASA's Earth Science Data and Information System (ESDIS).
  • Optional layers (4 sources in the layer list: live, forecast, observed and context) print their provider credit on the map and here when switched on; forecasts are model output and derived indices are estimates.

Layers and dates

  • Night-time lights, daily: VIIRS Black Marble (VNP46A2), NASA LAADS DAAC · 12 Oct 2026
  • Population density, 2020: Population: CIESIN, Columbia University, Gridded Population of the World v4.11 (2018), NASA SEDAC, CC BY 4.0 · static
  • Flood water, 3-day composite: VIIRS Global Flood Product, NASA LANCE · 14 Oct 2026
  • Active fires and thermal anomalies: VIIRS NOAA-20 375 m (FIRMS), NASA LANCE FIRMS · 13 Oct 2026
  • Land surface temperature, day, 8-day composite: VIIRS NOAA-20 Level 3, 8-day, NASA LANCE · 14 Sep 2026

04The subject

The subject, methods and measures and debates and bodies

The field and its scope

For compliance officers, investigators, analysts and policy staff who need to understand how illicit money moves through the financial system and what the controls can and cannot detect.

05The method

From a transaction to a suspicious activity report: base rates and alert precision

Illicit transactions are rare, so even an accurate monitoring rule produces mostly false alerts; the false positive rate, not the detection rate, decides how much analyst time a bank spends and how many reports reach the financial intelligence unit.

Sources: Sharman, Shopping for anonymous shell companies: an audit study of anonymity and crime in the international financial system (2010); Levi and Reuter, Money laundering (2006); Pol, Anti-money laundering: the world's least effective policy experiment? Together, we can fix it (2020).

06At a glance

At a glance, with 5 related topics

Financial crime and fraud at a glance

risksacademy.comfinance-economicsdiscipline

Financial crime and fraud: 0 primary courses open, 1 in preparation and 2 also taught here, across 8 subtopics. Courses: RAT-244 L2 in preparation, RAT-221 L2 also taught here, RAT-222 L2 also taught here.20L1L2L3L401
Financial crime and fraud at a glance
  • Open, 0
  • In preparation, 1
  • Also taught here, 2
  • Subtopics, 8
Course codes from the curriculum; study levels L1 to L4.
Twin builderBuild a twin of any placeWorked example: Houston and the Ship Channel · 5 generators · 11 layers · 3 instruments
07Console

How Financial crime and fraud is taught, as a process you can run

Press Play to run this process from this page's own data.

08Practice

Practice, learning and connections

How technology helps and what risk it brings

09Take part

Take part in Finance and Economics

Start from who you are.

10References

Core references and where to begin

Start with Levi, then Financial Action Task Force, then Pol.

11Questions

Questions, answers and key terms

Is study here free?
Yes. Every course and learning material of Risk Academy, led by the Nexus Consortium, is free to study, self-paced or with a cohort. Ordinary participation has no fee; paid work, internships and fellowships are separate arrangements.
What does completing a course give me?
A completion record: the course, its version, the date and what was assessed, private by default and shared by you. It stacks into discipline, department and programme achievements. A record states what was studied and assessed and does not certify competence; it is not a licence, a professional title or an employment status.
Where do the data and the places come from?
Every faculty teaches on a twin of a real place built from open data; each layer carries its provider, licence and date, and every result on the Academy states its source. Maps and figures are indicators for teaching, never an assessment of a place.
How do I take part beyond the courses in financial crime and fraud?
Form a competence cell of three to seven people, study a shared pathway, take a supervised assignment in the National Working Groups, or bring a cohort from your institution. For organisations.

Key terms

Term

Money laundering

Disguising the criminal origin of funds so they appear legitimate.

Term

Know your customer

Verifying customers' identities and understanding their activities.

Term

Beneficial owner

The natural person who ultimately owns or controls a legal entity.

Term

Sanctions screening

Checking customers and transactions against sanctions lists.

ReportsContribute

Contribute evidence from this page.

Reports is the Consortium's quarterly publication. What you know about this subject can become evidence, a case or a correction in the next edition, credited to you and published under CC BY 4.0 where it is your own work.

Risk Academy
Financial crime and fraud

Prepare with a related course

Open courses in connected disciplines teach the methods this discipline will build on.