The Laundry

Compliance professionals want one thing: to pore over the details of hefty AML fines and work out what went wrong. It’s not just about gloating (really!). It’s also about learning, so you don’t make the same mistake. So do big fines change anything, or are they just a cost of doing business? Our expert host, Robin Lycka , is joined again by Strise’s Fincrime Domain Lead, Asia Holt , to ask: what’s...

INTERPOL has just launched a public campaign warning that “AI is erasing the tell-tale signs of a scam.” Deepfakes now turn up at both ends of a laundering operation. They trick victims into sending money, and they open the accounts that move it on. We’ve come a long way from badly spelt phishing emails from a Nigerian prince. Our expert host, Fredrik Riiser , is joined by Sandy Kronenberg , Found...

In 2018, emails leaked by a Portuguese hacker began exposing the inner workings of Europe’s biggest football clubs. Manchester City was one of them. The fallout is still one of the biggest stories in sport. It isn’t a money-laundering case, but anyone in compliance will spot the red flag straight away: the leaks suggested the company named on the sponsorship contract wasn’t the one paying. From Ju...

What’s the key skill in fighting financial crime? Most people would say a head for data, spreadsheets and analytics. But maybe it’s walking past a florist that’s open at midnight and wondering: who’s buying roses at this hour? We put that kind of thinking to the test on the streets of Oslo, looking at how the world around us can be used to launder money. Robin Lycka is joined by Asia Holt , Fincri...

Recorded on stage at the International Anti-Financial Crime Summit in London. Are criminals better at collaborating than we are? If there’s one thing this industry loves, it’s the promise of a silver bullet – the thing that stops financial crime in its tracks. And the one that keeps getting proposed is information sharing: public with private, private with private, and every arrangement in between...

Donald Trump in 2025: "I'm a big crypto fan. I've been that from the beginning." Donald Trump in 2019 : "I am not a fan of Bitcoin and other Cryptocurrencies, which are not money, and whose value is highly volatile and based on thin air." What changed? Whatever the answer, Trump is only the highest-profile example of a growing trend. Our expert host, Robin Lycka , is jo...

$190,000 of trading cards stolen in Tokyo with a hammer. One card sold at auction for $16.5 million. Somewhere between those two facts is the reason a children's card game became one of the most portable stores of value on the planet. We're talking about Pokémon: the Japanese phenomenon that has hooked generations of collectors. The game that told children to "Catch 'Em All"...

Last November in the UK, more than 2,000 vape shops, mini marts and candy stores were raided in a National Crime Agency (NCA) operation – with £11 million in cash seized. But despite the raids, 'hubs of polycriminality' persist on the high street. Solving it means following the money. Our expert host, Marit Rødevand, is joined by Sal Melki , Deputy Director of Illicit Finance at National Crime Age...

We talk a lot about the dark money that makes the criminal world turn — but what about the money paid to the people fighting it? For all the responsibility, the stress, the expertise, and the constant need to adapt, compliance professionals are right to ask whether they're being paid what they're worth. Our expert host, Marit Rødevand, is joined by Quentin Downes , Divisional Director of Financial...

70% of us have already let AI loose on our day-to-day tasks — summarising documents, knocking out images, the usual. Turning it loose on a financial crime investigation is a different question entirely. Our expert host, Robin Lycka, is joined by Asia Holt , Fincrime Domain Lead at Strise , to put it to the test: can we train AI to think like a fincrime investigator? They build an AI investigator f...

In August 2026, FinCEN made it official: US companies no longer have to disclose who actually owns them. Five years after the Corporate Transparency Act was signed into law as America's "toughest anti-corruption tool in a generation", the federal registry behind it is being switched off — and the data already collected is being deleted. Our expert host. Robin Lycka, is joined by Erica Hanichak , C...

You've seen the stories: a big company makes staff redundant, replaces them with a shiny AI feature, then quietly hires them back once it all goes wrong. Why does this keep happening? Swapping human expertise for AI is never a straight substitution – especially in financial crime. Our expert host, Marit Rødevand , is joined by Craig McLeod , Partner in Financial Crime & Risk Consulting at EY ,...

" AML is a board-level topic ." – but is this true in practice? Is this more a provocative challenge than a current statement of fact? Under the EU's incoming AMLR, that may be set to change, but are most boards really ready for that? Our host, Marit Rødevand, is joined by Viveka Strangert , Non-Executive Board Member at Alecta, Fidelio Capital, & Ikano Bank and Chair of Loomis Sverige/Loomis...

MLROs are vital to financial services - a crucial link between companies, the risks they face, and the authorities. The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority have previously sent a warning to hundreds of companies who had burned through three or more MLROs in just three years. So, what does this tell us about the pressures of this role? In this episode – originally published in 2024 – Marit Rødeva...

The Wirecard scandal has become the stuff of legend. A German payments company, worth tens of billions of euros, collapsed following the exposure of massive accounting fraud and financial misconduct. It sent shockwaves across the financial industry and to the very top of the German government. But none of it would have been possible without the actions of a whistleblower. In this episode – origina...

No one said building a regulator from the ground up would be easy. But when the organisation chair, Bruna Szego, describes it as like ‘flying a plane while building it’ – you have to wonder how things are going on the ground.  Our expert host, Robin Lycka, is joined by Carlo Boffa , EU Correspondent for AML Intelligence , to ask: Is AMLA really on track? The panel discuss: what AMLA look...

The illegal wildlife trade is the fourth-biggest criminal market on the planet — behind only narcotics, counterfeiting, and human trafficking. And like any criminal trade of that scale, there's a hugely sophisticated network behind it, moving billions. This week's episode was recorded in the media room at the United for Wildlife Business Forum in London, set up by the Royal Foundation . Our expert...

According to Money20/20, the EMEA region accounts for 48% of the world's outbound cross-border payment flows — just under half! Now put yourself in the position of assessing those billions of transactions, moving at incredible speed, for financial crime risks and suspicious patterns. Sounds like a headache, right? Our expert host, Robin Lycka , is joined by René Hofe r, CRO/CCO & Branch Direct...

What were you doing at seventeen? If you were getting into trouble, it might've been with your teacher or parents! How about uncovering money laundering and, in turn, being sanctioned by the Russian government for your discoveries? Our expert host, Marit Rødevand, is joined by Alexander Browder , founder of the Global Cryptocurrency Laundering Database , to ask: " What does it take to get sanction...

What do you think is keeping anti-financial crime professionals up at night? According to Nasdaq Verafin's latest Global Financial Crime Report, there's something more pressing than deepfakes or even AMLA. It's money launderers growing up, graduating, and acting more like Fortune 500 companies than criminals. Our expert host, Marit Rødevand, is joined by Kamlesh Harry , Principal Strategic Advisor...

Coming to you from Insight Denmark 's recent 'Compliance & Legal in the financial sector' conference in Copenhagen! In the 1984 film Terminator , the T-800 is a threat — a machine sent from the future to destroy us. By the 1991 sequel, the exact same model has been reprogrammed and is now humanity's last line of defence. Is this how we should be looking at technology and financial crime? A thr...

What happens when you take a World Cup fixtures wall chart, the Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index, the UN sanctions list, and a little AI magic? You uncover the financial crime risks hiding inside the world's biggest sporting event. The World Cup is one week away. While the world celebrates the beautiful game, the allure of football and its riches makes it an irresistible tar...

Everybody in this industry knows Graham Barrow and Ray Blake — who have been unpacking the finer details of financial crime prevention on their podcast, The Dark Money Files , since 2019.  So it was an honour when Marit the first person ever to take up a third chair alongside them, to discuss all things AI in financial crime. In this special takeover episode: we are handing our podcast feed o...

The 1MDB scandal may be the AML industry’s ultimate whack-a-mole – popping back up again and again. A Malaysian government fund set up to boost the country’s economy became one of the biggest frauds in history. Now, the alleged mastermind and current fugitive from the law, Jho Low, has reportedly put in a request for a US presidential pardon from Trump. In this episode, originally published n 2024...

Spin the wheel, roll the dice, play your hand — the world of online gaming is all about calculated risk and reward. Now it's the operators' turn to think about risk. From July 2027, they fall under AMLA's new AML rulebook. Host Robin Lycka is joined by Sam Stenius , Head of AML at PAF , to ask: is the gambling/gaming industry in for an AML wake-up call? They discuss the current challenges facing t...