Research Interests:
Though recent publications by international institutions and enforcement agencies suggest terrorist groups are increasingly relying on the use of emerging financial technologies to manage the funding of their activities, there is little... more
Though recent publications by international institutions and enforcement agencies suggest terrorist groups are increasingly relying on the use of emerging financial technologies to manage the funding of their activities, there is little evidence supporting this claim. This study sheds light on the employment of traditional and new financial technologies and payment methods for terrorist financing purposes. To this end, we assess the prevalence of the use of different technologies to finance terrorism based on a comprehensive dataset of 1,363 documented cases of terrorist financing. Results confirm the use of emerging FinTechs (e.g., cryptocurrencies) in terrorist financing, although the use of emerging FinTechs is still much rarer than traditional payment systems and technologies. Terrorist financers seem to have a great confidence in the banking system along with the use of cash and foreign shell companies to fund their activities. Hawala systems are also still common in terrorist financing as well as high-value commodities such as gold and diamond. Research and policy implications for law enforcement and public authorities are discussed.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
The COVID-19 pandemic has created new opportunities for organized criminal groups and confronted them with new challenges. Analysis of how these groups have reacted to the pandemic yields better understanding of how they work and enables... more
The COVID-19 pandemic has created new opportunities for organized criminal groups and confronted them with new challenges. Analysis of how these groups have reacted to the pandemic yields better understanding of how they work and enables the devising of more effective counter-strategies. To this end, we identified illustrative cases regarding the provision of illegal governance and infiltration of the legal economy by conducting a systematic content analysis of international media articles and institutional reports published during the first eight months after the outbreak of the pandemic (January to August 2020). These cases were further analyzed in order to cluster the behavior of criminal groups in response to the COVID-19 emergency, and the means by which they tried to exploit the pandemic to strengthen their political and economic power. We found that different governance-type criminal groups proposed themselves as institutions able to mitigate the burdens imposed by the pandem...