Director of fscom, Philip Creed who co-founded The Dark Money Conference in 2020 together with Graham Barrow and Ray Blake from the Dark Money Files gives us a glimpse into what to expect from the first day of the conference this year.
In the modern globalised and digitised world, financial crimes such as money laundering and fraud are becoming increasingly frequent and severe, both involving and affecting a wide range of sectors Although the common perception of financial crime is that it does not leave any “real” victim or cost, this couldn’t be further from the truth!
Financial crime is an evolving threat. Criminals are leveraging developing technologies to make their methods and processes more sophisticated, intensifying the challenge faced by organisations throughout the globe – whether they are governments, regulators, organisations, businesses, or individuals. The result is that financial crime now affects us all.
To formulate an effective global response against the growing financial crime problem, participants from across the anti-financial crime community are coming together at the The Dark Money Conference on 15-17 September 2021. Hundreds of attendees and over 40 speakers will be virtually convening at this year’s conference to discuss strategies for combatting financial crime and to share perspectives on how we might mitigate the social, economic and human harm caused by financial crime.
Here’s a taster of what we will be discussing:
The conference will be opened by ComplyAdvantage’s CEO, Charlie Delingpole and The Dark Money Files, Graham Barrow and Ray Blake who will introduce the theme for the first day – “How fincrime hurts us all”. How are we all affected by financial crime and what is our role in the fight against financial crime? What are we doing to move the fight against financial crime forward?
The social harm caused by financial crime
As financial crime comes in many different forms, occurs across many different borders and is often very discreet and well hidden, its impact is often hard to measure and thus to counteract. The social costs of financial crime are, however, very real – ranging from rising healthcare costs due to increasing violence, diversion of tax revenues from areas of social benefit in order to counteract financial crime, increasing government corruption, and much more. The first panel of the Dark Money Conference 2021 will be comprised of leading investigative journalists, Oliver Bullough, freelance journalist and author of Moneyland and Paul Radu, co-founder of OCCRP, Martin Markiewicz, Founder and CEO of Silent Eight and global director of financial crime at Fenergo, Rachel Wooley, as they discuss the social harm caused by financial crime.
The economic harm caused by financial crime
The economic scale of financial crime is illustrated by the fact that financial crime now accounts for 3.6% of global GDP, according to the International Compliance Association (ICA), with $1.45 trillion in estimated aggregate turnover lost as a result of financial crimes. A further $2.4 trillion in proceeds from criminal activities are laundered through the world’s financial markets. The economic damage caused by financial crime is apparent and is often the first aspect one might consider when assessing its impact. While financial crime affects many corporations in the developed world, it can also affect developing countries by causing often insurmountable obstacles for the growth and development of their emerging economies. The Dark Money Conference 2021 will dive into this issue through a panel of leading consultants discussing the economic harm caused by financial crime including Mitch Trehan, UK Head of Compliance and MLRO at Banking Circle, Matthew Collin, of Brookings Institution, Federica Taccogna, Senior Managing Director of FTI Consulting, Entrepreneur, Jason Holt, and Neil Whiley, Director of the International Sanctions Programme at UK Finance.
The human harm caused by financial crime
The cost of financial crime goes far, far beyond the economic impact. The money generated by financial crimes has been linked to terrorism, slavery, child labour, and other human rights abuses, all of which have significant effects of individual human lives. The Dark Money Conference will be joined by Matthew Caruana Galizia from the Daphne Foundation, who will end the first day of the conference with a keynote on how financial crime can impact our individual human lives, before detailing how he has taken the fight against financial crime forward in the past year with his continued campaign for justice for his mother, Daphne Galizia, an anti-corruption journalist who was assassinated in 2017. He will be joined by his barrister, Jonathan Price from Doughty Street Chambers to answer all your questions.
Tickets for The Dark Money Conference 2021 online are still on sale!
From 15-17 September, hundreds of global leaders, law enforcement, government bodies, 40+ speakers and more, will come together to help create a solution to tackle financial crime.
You won’t want to miss it!
