Analysis of International Experience in Building Anti-Money
Laundering and Counter-Terrorist Financing Mechanisms in the
Digital Economy
Vladimir Ivanovich Avdiysky
a
and Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Bezdenezhnykh
b
Department of Economic Security and Risk Management of the Faculty of Economics and Business, Financial University
under the Government of the Russian Federation, Moscow, Russia
Keywords: Financial monitoring, AML/CFT system, financial intelligence, Federal Financial Monitoring Service
(Rosfinmonitoring), databases.
Abstract: The objective of this paper is to analyze foreign experience in building anti-money laundering and counter-
terrorist financing mechanisms to improve Russian AML/CFT legislation and government policy aimed at
enhancing the effectiveness of anti-money laundering efforts under the current conditions of digital
transformation. The tasks that are expected to be accomplished in order to meet the objective: analysis of the
existing foreign methodologies for the collection, analysis and pre-checking of data on financial and economic
transactions involving funds or other assets of an illegal or economically inappropriate nature; substantiation
of the need to transform state policy in the sphere of cooperation with foreign countries and international
organizations in the field of AML/CFT; formulation of proposals for the formation of a framework for digital
info-analytic and organizational and methodological state control of measures to detect and suppress the
legitimization (laundering) of proceeds of crime. Theoretical foundation of the study consists of the works of
domestic and foreign criminologists, legal scholars, economists, sociologists and political scientists dealing
with the problems of combating money laundering, identification and elimination of causes and conditions
contributing to the commission of these offences, countering corruption, theft, fraud, drug trafficking and
other offences for the purpose of untaxed income.
1 INTRODUCTION
Practice shows that in today's environment, financial
monitoring, being a unique and very effective tool,
allows for the effective use of the financial system in
the fight against crime and for tracing virtually any
offence where there is a financial trail using the
money movement chain in Russia this institution
has been in use relatively recently. There is no doubt
that since the creation of the Federal Financial
Monitoring Service, and to this day, Russia has done
a lot of work to improve and develop the efforts in
AML/CFT, including creating mechanisms to
facilitate the use of financial information in the fight
against crime. However, an objective data analysis
shows that it is not all that optimistic. There is
certainly much to report from the point of view of
a
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6685-3589
b
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9827-6328
establishing these institutions, but there are also a
number of problems that need to be addressed
quickly. Unfortunately, as of today, in our country
there are still:
low efficiency of the entire system in terms of
convictions and confiscation of the proceeds of
crime;
inefficient and highly selective monitoring of
financial transactions of officials and
businessmen associated with them, as well as
the intermediaries;
lack of proper efficient cooperation between
the executive authorities involved in the anti-
money laundering and counter-terrorist
financing system.
All this has an extremely negative impact on
Russia's economic and national security as a whole.
In this regard, it appears that the analysis of foreign
Avdiysky, V. and Bezdenezhnykh, V.
Analysis of International Experience in Building Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorist Financing Mechanisms in the Digital Economy.
DOI: 10.5220/0010699200003169
In Proceedings of the International Scientific-Practical Conference "Ensuring the Stability and Security of Socio-Economic Systems: Overcoming the Threats of the Crisis Space" (SES 2021),
pages 303-311
ISBN: 978-989-758-546-3
Copyright
c
2022 by SCITEPRESS Science and Technology Publications, Lda. All rights reserved
303
experience in building anti-money laundering and
counter-terrorist financing mechanisms, taking into
account the current challenges and threats, is relevant
and will make it possible to develop specific
proposals for improving this activity in Russia.
2 MATERIALS AND METHODS
Analysis of the formation of national authority liaison
systems in countries that have been successfully
assessed by the FATF shows that most foreign
jurisdictions establish a specialized national system
within which a financial monitoring service operates.
However, the international AML/CFT standards
developed by the UN, the FATF, the EU, the
Wolfsberg Group and the Basel Committee have a
decisive impact on the legal and organizational
framework. They become the source of the legal
framework for establishing a national system, which
leads to the existence of common features of a
financial monitoring system in individual states. The
established international and national AML/CFT
requirements respectively form the rules and
guidelines specifically for companies. In these
conditions, the performance of well-functioning
systems is aggregated in the indicators of cooperation
in sharing necessary information in the areas of
contact listed above.
In this regard, it is useful to consider the UK's
experience in ensuring effective law enforcement
cooperation, where there is a database containing
information on suspicious transactions, which can be
directly accessed by the police.
A similar system exists in the United States,
where authorities actively and routinely use financial
intelligence data and other information to identify
suspects, gather evidence in investigations, and trace
illicit proceeds related to ML/TF/PWMD, and
predicate offences.
The greatest US strength in this area is the
information processing centres and joint working
teams that bring together federal, state and local
partners in an inter-agency environment. Information
processing centres serve as hubs for receiving,
analyzing and gathering threat information, sharing
such information and dissemination of important
intelligence data on indicators of wrongdoing (based
on financial information, national intelligence and
information provided by local, state and regional
authorities).
It should be emphasized that the US authorities
use not only financial intelligence, but also other
information from a variety of sources:
a) FinCEN database is the main financial
intelligence repository in the United States,
containing information on suspicious
transactions, currency transaction reports,
reports on international transportation of cash
or monetary instruments, reports on foreign
bank and financial accounts, and reports on
monetary payments over USD 10,000, received
during transactions, or in the course of
business;
b) FEDWIRE: The Federal Reserve Bank of New
York can search names, addresses and account
numbers for any money transfers that are made
through this system;
c) CHIPS (Clearing House Interbank Payments
System): searching the CHIPS network
through which bank transfers are made;
d) tax returns;
e) correspondent bank accounts;
f) operational databases that include data from
prosecutors, investigative intelligence,
criminal records and mutual legal assistance
requests and other data;
g) information from company, vehicle and
property registries as well as data from publicly
available sources.
FinCEN provides direct, independent access to its
data for representatives of relevant federal, state and
local oversight agencies. Nine key authorities are
given enhanced access, with full- and part-time staff
provided, enabling the authorities to collaborate
directly with FinCEN's analysts.
The situation in Austria is different, due to the
limited analytical capacity and legal restrictions
imposed on the Austrian Financial Intelligence Unit,
performing only the most general analysis of financial
information, which is also reflected in the lack of its
own database that would allow conducting in-depth
investigations. The FATF has therefore
recommended that the jurisdiction develop its own
financial information database and make it available
to law enforcement agencies.
Law enforcement agencies in China, as is the case
with Russia, can obtain information from the FIU
upon request and do not have liaison officers at the
AML Analysis and Monitoring Centre, the AML
Bureau and the thirty-six provincial branches of the
National Bank of China to facilitate such indirect
access to information, which affects the speed with
which anti-money laundering measures are
implemented.
It is further noted that current financial data from
financial intelligence agencies allow China to launch
new investigations into predicate offences and
SES 2021 - INTERNATIONAL SCIENTIFIC-PRACTICAL CONFERENCE "ENSURING THE STABILITY AND SECURITY OF
SOCIO - ECONOMIC SYSTEMS: OVERCOMING THE THREATS OF THE CRISIS SPACE"
304
ML/TF/PWMD crimes, although this is often not the
case due to a lack of direct access to financial
information databases and the need to go through
bureaucratic procedures to generate requests. Thus,
the statistics reviewed by the FATF show a 100%
success rate of investigations based on requested
materials, while the number of proactively submitted
materials has not resulted in a comparably high
number of investigations and has not contributed to
successful criminal investigations conducted by law
enforcement agencies a similar situation is observed
in Russia.
Analysis of materials regarding Italy show that
law enforcement authorities in the country receive all
suspicious transaction reports, technical reports
(analysis materials used only as financial intelligence
information, but not as evidence and proof) and other
information indicating the risk level and carry out
preliminary investigations to confirm or refute the
conclusions drawn by the financial intelligence unit.
FATF stresses that due to the restriction on the use of
technical reports and the provision of information on
"clean" transactions, law enforcement agencies are
forced to repeat the examination of submitted data, a
situation very similar to that in Russia, where
Rosfinmonitoring submits information to the
Ministry of Internal Affairs with a note "not to be
included in the criminal case file".
The technical reports (analysis material) and
STRs provided by the financial intelligence unit can
only be used as financial intelligence information (i.e.
they cannot be used as evidence or proof). Unlike
most foreign financial intelligence units, the Italian
FIU is obliged to provide to the relevant authorities
(i.e. the Guardia di Finanza and the Antimafia
Investigative Directorate) the STRs which it
considers as unconfirmed and for which the
verification has been discontinued (i.e. "closed"
STRs). "Preliminary investigation", conducted by
Guardia di Finanza and the Antimafia Investigative
Directorate, includes verification of information
provided by the FIU in databases of law enforcement
bodies. "Preliminary investigation" of "closed" STRs
is not carried out in all cases, however, such STRs are
still provided to the Guardia di Finanza and the
Antimafia Investigative Directorate in case they are
required in specific circumstances.
Spanish law enforcement agencies, on the other
hand, have direct access to a wide range of financial
and other data, similarly to the USA [18]: the state
register of land (cadastre), companies, real estate; the
register of life insurance policies of the Ministry of
Justice; the unified computerized directory of notaries
(containing accurate legal and beneficial ownership
information and to which law enforcement agencies
have real-time access); the social security registry
(TGSS); the database of the Bank of Spain on
payment balances; the database on holders of
financial assets.
Thus, a cross-section of different international
practices has shown that the most effective measure
of interactions is the following system:
1) FIU performs accumulation and analysis of
financial information;
2) A single database is created, containing not
only FIU information, but also tax, customs,
banking and other information from various
public and private registers.
3) Interaction between authorities is based not
only on requests, but also on the provision of
effective proactive investigations by the FIU,
which can be the basis for preliminary
investigations, but also on the provision of real-
time access to the database.
So, by comparing the analysis data obtained as a
result of researching the mechanism of interaction
within the domestic AML/CFT system and
international experience, it becomes possible to
compare strengths and weaknesses, opportunities and
threats to the development of the current level of
interaction of federal executive bodies in detecting
and combating money laundering.
Table 4 presents such a comparison in the form of
a SWOT analysis, based on both the reviewed
academic literature and professional materials, as
well as a survey by Rosfinmonitoring experts in the
field.
Table 4: SWOT-analysis of the interaction of federal executive bodies in Russian AML/CFT system
Strengths Weaknesses
1. To date, a functioning system of inter-agency cooperation and interaction has
been established, implemented through the Inter-agency Commission on Combating
Money Laundering, Terrorist Financing and the Financing of Proliferation of
Weapons of Mass Destruction, the Inter-agency Working Group on Combating
Illicit Financial Transactions, the Inter-agency Commission on Countering
Extremism, the Inter-agency Commission on Countering the Financing of
Terrorism, State Anti-Drug Committee, National Anti-Terrorism Committee, as
well as cooperation agreements with 27 organizations and government agencies.
1. The interaction involves constantly fine-tuned
forms of real time communication. The system
prioritizes the exchange of information through
request-response cooperation.
2. Although the reporting entities and the
responsible authorities have sufficient human
resources, law enforcement agencies do not have
the expert knowledge in the field of crimes related
to complex ML/TF/PWMD schemes.
Analysis of International Experience in Building Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorist Financing Mechanisms in the Digital
Economy
305
Table 4: SWOT-analysis of the interaction of federal executive bodies in Russian AML/CFT system (cont.).
2. Based on Federal Law No 115-FZ and Russian Government Decree No. 492,
dated May 29, 2014, high qualification requirements for financial monitoring
specialists have been developed, and through cooperation agreements with
universities, qualified AML/CFT personnel are being trained, which has enabled the
system to be filled with high-level analysts.
3. Over the years of development of the AML/CFT/PWMD mechanism in Russia,
a serious methodological basis has been accumulated, based both on the FATF
Recommendations and on our own experience, which is expressed in the
development of relevant laws, regulations of the FFMS, Bank of Russia, Assay
Chamber, Roskomnadzor, law enforcement agencies and other documents and
materials.
3. There is a lack of complete methodological
coherence in referring the results of financial
investigations to law enforcement agencies for
preliminary investigation and further legal action
for fair punishment, and confiscation.
Opportunities (areas) for the development Threats (risks) for the current interaction
1. Legislation should be harmonized to allow for effective forms of cooperation
between Rosfinmonitoring and the law enforcement agencies, including through the
development of the institution of interim measures and the creation of a unified
methodology for financial and preliminary investigations.
2. Use of new (digital) methods of interaction in the implementation of cooperation
between the federal executive bodies in the field of AML/CFT by providing real-
time access to the federal database.
3. Creating sufficient awareness of the dangers of ML/TF/PWMD offences and
social intolerance towards such offences.
1. Lowering of the priority of detecting
legitimization as a politically biased trend based
on the corrupt interests of government institutions.
2. Creation of a criminal misdemeanour institution
making it possible to evade certain money
laundering offences.
3. The impact of "double standards" in the
AML/CFT/PWMD-related international
interactions between FIUs.
Based on the SWOT analysis, it can be concluded
that, in addition to the above proposals, in present-day
conditions the most effective methods and tools to
improve the effectiveness of the existing
AML/CFT/PWMD interaction system are those
based on modern digital solutions that allow for the
fastest exchange of necessary information, which
must be processed and analyzed in accordance with a
common methodology, in order to avoid repetition of
actions by different authorities (e.g. the situation with
the stamp "not to be included in the criminal case file"
on the results of financial investigations). These
measures are particularly necessary at a time of
digital transformation, when a potential offender has
the ability to commit malicious acts in an extremely
short period.
3 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
When researching the market for digital financial and
security solutions, it should be noted that the
development of modern financial technology is far
ahead of AML/CFT regulation. What is also clear is
that the second decade of the twenty-first century has
seen an explosion of digital technologies that have
literally entered the lives of everyone on the planet.
The first descriptions of the ongoing process were
published in the '90s by Don Tapscott in his book
«The Digital Economy: Promise and Peril in the Age
of Networked Intelligence", and a little later by
Nicholas Negroponte in "Being Digital", where the
digital economy is described as "bits instead of
atoms". To date, an in-depth scientific view of the
phenomenon of the "Great Digital Revolution",
linked to the concepts of "Industry 4.0" and "Society
5.0" as it is also known as the fourth industrial
revolution, which certainly brings many challenges
and threats to modern humanity, has already been
formed.
The digital economy is already going far beyond
the Internet or process automation to include
hyperconnectivity, the Internet of things, big data,
advanced analytics, wireless networks, mobile
devices and social media, and so on. In this regard,
the global phenomenon of digitalization is leading to
fundamental changes in business models, in the way
the government works and in the way the social
relations are organized.
Thus, domestic academics already estimate that
"the information and communications technology
complex is growing at a rate of around 30% a year",
a clear example being the United States, where the
level of digitalization is now estimated at a third of
the country's GDP, amounting to around USD 6
trillion. such trends set the appropriate trends in
global economic development, making the 6th
technological stage the growth driver. Thus, the
overall focus on digitalization lays down a powerful
vector for the development of both the economy of
individual sectors and the country as a whole.
Digitalization and economic growth are closely
linked concepts in the current environment.
The digitalization in the long term entail the
automation of the implementation of some activities
in various fields: financial, industrial, political, socio-
cultural and others. The capital assets of enterprises,
renewed due to robotic automation, will be able to
SES 2021 - INTERNATIONAL SCIENTIFIC-PRACTICAL CONFERENCE "ENSURING THE STABILITY AND SECURITY OF
SOCIO - ECONOMIC SYSTEMS: OVERCOMING THE THREATS OF THE CRISIS SPACE"
306
carry out their functions without or with minimal
human intervention.
For example, a research by KPMG, shown in
Table 5, shows that the private sector is already fully
engaged in the digitalization trend, actively
developing this area, which, if it achieves the
necessary investment levels, will become one of the
main drivers of economic growth: its contribution to
GDP growth will exceed 50% by 2030, driven by
improvements in the efficiency and competitiveness
of other economic sectors. Overall, Russia's gross
product will increase by 34% between 2017 and 2030,
precisely because of the information industry and the
digitalization of sectors of the economy.
Table 5: The use of digital technology in the Russian economy
Technology Overall Retail Teleco
m
Financial
institutions
Metallurgy IT Oil and
gas
Transport
Bi
g
Data 68% 55% 100% 84% 67% 100% 50% 14%
Chat-
b
ots 51% 50% 75% 60% 33% 40% 50% 29%
Robot
automation
50% 40% 100% 56% 83% 20% 50% 14%
OCR 36% 20% 25% 56% 67% 1% 50% 14%
AI 28% 5% 75% 40% 17% 80% 25% 1%
IoT 24% 15% 100% 12% 50% 20% 25% 29%
VR/AR 21% 20% 25% 16% 33% 40% 25% 14%
Blockchain 19% 20% 25% 32% 1% 20% 1% 1%
Source: compiled by a team of contributors.
In the financial sector, however, there are
particularly striking trends indicating the enormous
potential for digital financial services (or fintech – "a
complex system combining the new technology and
financial services sector, start-ups and related
infrastructure"), which will be based, as the Bank of
Russia states in its study, on the mobile technology,
Big Data, robots, AI, biometrics, etc. Firstly, it is
defined that by 2021, 35-50% of bank customers will
use mobile banking; secondly, 82 percentage points
of financial institutions are going to increase
interaction with fintech companies within 3-5 years;
thirdly, 56% of financial sector representatives
position digital transformation as the basis of their
business strategy; fourthly, investment in fintech
companies in the US in 2016 - 2013 has doubled to a
record USD 24.7 bln.
Also under the Digital Economy national project,
BIG DATA technologies are included in the list of
priority technologies, along with artificial
intelligence and neurotechnology. In November
2017, experts developed a draft "Convention on
Robotics and Artificial Intelligence" (adopted by the
State Duma Committee on Economic Policy,
Industry, Innovation and Entrepreneurship in the first
half of 2018), which combined all the currently
existing principles for regulating the industry into one
system.
Thus, the digitalization process in Russia today is
an undeniable reality that must also be used to create
the most effective AML/CFT/PWMD system,
including the establishment of digital inter-agency
cooperation.
Touching on the oversight practices already
today, the digital transformation offers great
opportunities to realize this goal.
For example, RegTech, which includes
compliance, identity management and control, risk
management, regulatory reporting and transaction
monitoring, is already a technology that helps
financial services firms comply with regulatory
requirements and financial compliance rules. It
allows businesses to build a constructive dialogue
with regulators, which is necessary against the
background of radical digital transformation.
SupTech, on the other hand, includes real-time
analysis of credit institution data on various
transactions in order to detect fraud, analyze the
affiliations of persons of interest, including
borrowers, predict cash demand and, based on
payment data, draw conclusions regarding the
stability of credit institutions. Practice shows that this
digital technology can also be used extensively for
financial intelligence, fiscal and operational
information on the illegal activities of a business
entity.
Thus, the technology makes it possible to
automate administrative procedures, improve the
reporting quality and enhance the decision-making
system. Therefore, it becomes possible to carry out
automated remote verification of certain economic
entities in a continuous manner by creating
customized algorithms.
Of course, the availability of technical and
technological capabilities to implement RegTech and
SupTech provides conditions for, but does not
Analysis of International Experience in Building Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorist Financing Mechanisms in the Digital
Economy
307
guarantee the improvement in the quality of control
and supervisory and regulatory activities, since these
are only tools or a "superstructure" of the overall
public administration system, so the crucial role will
be played by qualitative changes in the legal
framework, in the organization and methodological
support of business processes and their adaptation to
new conditions.
Indeed, advanced big data analysis has the
potential to detect potentially criminal transactions
not only in the traditional financial system, but also in
its virtual superstructure by forming special criteria or
risk indicators and training neural networks in this
way, although the overall impact of digitalization on
money laundering is clearly mixed: not only are the
mechanisms of financial institutions and, therefore,
money laundering schemes becoming more complex,
but new ways of carrying out control and oversight
functions are also emerging, although unfortunately,
Russian regulators are now lagging behind the
"miscreants" in terms of realizing the potential of
modern technology for their own purposes, which
means that the volume of legalized assets is only
increasing.
It is also important to note that the application of
digital technologies is only possible when the
traditional anti-money laundering system works
effectively and is ready for the implementation of an
"add-on" designed to simplify the technical work of
financial monitoring specialists by providing the
ability to process large volumes of information at
lower cost in an automated mode, and it is vital to
consider information security risks, which is now
possible with the introduction of special DLP
software, and the increasing complexity of the
management system due to the use of new solutions.
At the same time, as can be seen from the analysis
of international practices, leading countries around
the world, such as the US, have already developed
specific legal and digital solutions to ensure
compliance with the necessary AML/CFT/PWMD
regulations. This experience should be used and
Russia.
So, firstly, it would seem rational to develop a
single model platform for processing financial
information at the level of reporting entities in order
to make high technology available to the whole
sector, which would increase the efficiency of anti-
money laundering system. Secondly, it is necessary to
improve the existing federal database by combining it
with the proposed complex for the reporting entities
and providing specialized access for other competent
authorities, following the example of the US, Spain
and other countries.
Having formulated the general directions for the
development and improvement of the existing main
aggregator of financial information collection and
analysis - the federal database of the FFMS - it is
necessary to describe in detail the structure and
functioning mechanisms of the proposed system.
While stipulating at the outset the availability of
information from this database to various authorities,
it should be noted that bank secrecy will be respected,
as it will transform into a business secret or secrecy
of the investigation. We would also like to
immediately note our support for a unified household
database [14], given that a federal database could be
the basis for such a "unified base", following the
example of the US, including not only financial
information on suspicious transactions, but also the
following information:
Unified State Register of Taxpayers;
Unified National Register of Legal Entities;
Information from the judiciary and law
enforcement agencies;
Information on education and academic
degrees, including those obtained abroad;
Data on compulsory pension and health
insurance;
Data on registration with the Federal Service
for Labour and Employment for the
unemployed and on the granting of a work
permit for foreigners;
Information on the registration of private
entrepreneurs and self-employed persons;
Numbers assigned when a citizen is registered
with the tax office;
Information on military registration;
Tax and banking information.
In order to ensure the security of this database, it
is necessary, as mentioned above, to develop a unified
inter-agency regulation defining not only the
procedure for interaction between agencies, but also
the procedure for the formation and use of the
database. At the same time, a special training of
Rosfinmonitoring staff on the system and instructing
on the secrecy regime should be provided for, with
their further secondment to other authorities,
accessing the system from a special computer device
equipped with an information security system to
counter data leaks (DLP system), which would block
any unauthorized access to the system and any
illegitimate data uploads. It is also possible to
configure the access system to prevent the acquisition
of information containing state secrets relating to the
country's political leaders and other designated
individuals, the access to which could result in critical
damage to Russia's national security.
SES 2021 - INTERNATIONAL SCIENTIFIC-PRACTICAL CONFERENCE "ENSURING THE STABILITY AND SECURITY OF
SOCIO - ECONOMIC SYSTEMS: OVERCOMING THE THREATS OF THE CRISIS SPACE"
308
Based on this analysis, three modes of access to
the system are envisaged:
1) Reporting entity, which should use this
software to track transactions carried out in
accordance with Law No. 115-FZ, blocking them or
reporting them to Rosfinmonitoring if necessary. This
stage is formulated as the processing of transaction
reports by means of an automated selection of the
riskiest transactions, after processing of which and
confirmation of such status by the officer responsible
for the implementation of financial monitoring
measures, an event is created, expressed in the
identification of a suspicious transaction, and sent to
Rosfinmonitoring.
2) Federal Financial Monitoring Service as an
operator and a database administrator having access
to all the operations that took place in the system, but
receiving reports of recorded events related to the
identification of suspicious transactions, which are
further processed by AI based on UEBA system (User
and Entity Behavioral Analytics), and after
confirmation of abnormality the events become
incidents and are transferred to the employee for
further verification and financial investigation.
3) Other competent authorities which are granted
access through inter-agency cooperation and which
receive the full scope of analytical financial
information without the right to administer the base,
but with the ability to conduct their own
investigations. Access granted to these authorities,
through seconded FFMS analysts, may be restricted
in accordance with legal requirements by the
administrator of the database – Rosfinmonitoring.
Figure 3, for example, graphically illustrates the
functioning of the proposed system with the
designation of responsibilities, the flow of
information and the rules for processing it, as well as
the availability of this information to various entities
subject to inter-agency cooperation.
In addition, there appears to be a need to transition
from using a federal database for transaction analysis
to a mechanism used in Europe and the US called the
"People-Centric Approach". The approach is not
based on looking for suspicious transactions, but on
comparing the cash flows of an individual entity or
individual. In other words, the comparison of its
income and expenditure. It is clear that the
combination of both techniques, using modern digital
technology, will yield the greatest results in the field
of anti-money laundering. This is why the developed
mechanism, based on transaction analysis with the
addition of in-depth and comprehensive information
on a person or entity stacked from other public
registers and databases, will make it possible to
analyses the behaviour of a particular subject for
anomalies using the UEBA system, as well as to build
graphs of that subject's links with other persons for
the most expeditious investigations.
Speaking of the UEBA (User and Entity
Behavioral Analytics) function, we note that it is a
class of systems that allows, based on data sets about
subject-users, using machine learning algorithms and
statistical analysis, to build their behavior models,
forming user patterns (criminal behavior,
conscientious behavior, etc.), identify deviations
from these models, both in real time and
retrospectively. So, the UEBA systems,
architecturally, solve 4 main tasks:
- Applied analytics of data from various sources,
both simple statistical and advanced, using
machine learning techniques, in real time
and/or at specific intervals;
- Rapid identification of irregularities, most of
which are not detected by classical analysis
tools;
- Prioritization of events based on risk level for
faster response by administrators;
- A more efficient response to events by
providing administrators with enhanced
incident information, including all entities that
were involved in the abnormal activity. Based
on the above, the core of any UEBA system
includes technologies for dealing with large
data arrays.
Analysis of International Experience in Building Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorist Financing Mechanisms in the Digital
Economy
309
Figure 4: Operation scheme of the proposed system. Source: developed by the author.
4 CONCLUSIONS
Thus, the most comprehensive mechanism of
effective interaction between federal executive bodies
in detecting and combating money laundering is
proposed, based on the implementation of a set of
organizational and practical measures using new
digital forms of communication, which are fully
implemented based on Rostelecom-Solar technology,
with the analytical support from relevant experts.
In summary, the proposed measures would
improve the domestic AML/CFT/PWMD system in
full compliance with the FATF recommendations
described in the 2019 Russian Federation Mutual
Evaluation Report:
1. Supplementing the information available to
Rosfinmonitoring by using other data sources.
2. Enhancing law enforcement agencies' use of
financial analysis and other relevant
information to better identify bribery and abuse
of power, consistent with the risks identified in
the national money laundering risk assessment
report.
3. Enabling the investigation and prosecution of
offences involving sophisticated money
laundering schemes to be prioritized, with
intelligence and in-depth advanced analytical
techniques to support effective detection.
4. With UEBA and a People-Centric Approach,
including link graph tools, it will be possible to
conduct the most comprehensive analysis of
sources of funds and their possible links to
predicate offences, including corruption
offences.
REFERENCES
Presidential Decree No. 203 dated 09.05.2017 "On the
Strategy of the Information Society Development in the
Russian Federation for 2017-2030",
www.consultant.ru/
SES 2021 - INTERNATIONAL SCIENTIFIC-PRACTICAL CONFERENCE "ENSURING THE STABILITY AND SECURITY OF
SOCIO - ECONOMIC SYSTEMS: OVERCOMING THE THREATS OF THE CRISIS SPACE"
310
Federal Law No. 273-FZ "On Combating Corruption" dated
December 25, 2008, http://www.consultant.ru/
Federal Law No. 115-FZ "On Countering the Legalisation
(Laundering) of Criminally Obtained Incomes and the
Financing of Terrorism" dated August 07, 2001,
http://www.consultant.ru/
Austria Mutual Evaluation Report 2016. FATF,
https://mumcfm.ru/
Spain Mutual Evaluation Report 2014. FATF,
https://mumcfm.ru/
Italy Mutual Evaluation Report 2015. FATF,
https://mumcfm.ru/
PRC Mutual Evaluation Report 2019. FATF,
https://eurasiangroup.org/
Russian Federation Mutual Evaluation Report 2019.
FATF, https://eurasiangroup.org/
US Mutual Evaluation Report 2016. FATF,
https://mumcfm.ru/
Official website of the Federal Financial Monitoring
Service. Rosfinmonitoring, http://www.fedsfm.ru
Official website of the Japan Financial Intelligence Centre
(JAFIC), https://www.npa.go.jp/
Eskindarov, M.A., Abramova, M.A., Maslennikov, V.V.,
Amosova, N.A., Varnavsky, A.V., Dubova, S.Ye.,
Zvonova, Ye.A., Krivoruchko, S.V., Lopatin, V.A.,
Pischik, V.Ya., Rudakova, O.S., Ruchkina, G.F.,
Slavin, B.B., Fedotova, M.A., (2018) Directions of
development of financial technologies in Russia: expert
opinion of the University of Finance. In The world of
the new economy. 2. pp. 6-23.
Money Laundering Stages. Finance and Credit,
https://pravo.studio/
National risk assessment of money laundering and terrorist
financing 2017,
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/
Analysis of International Experience in Building Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorist Financing Mechanisms in the Digital
Economy
311