Become AML/CFT Expert: Zero To Hero Course (Part 1 )

Dissect how money laundering disguises the source and movement of illegal proceeds to appear legitimate, and why anti-money laundering controls target predicate offenses like drug trafficking and human trafficking.

Money laundering is a three-phase process: placement, layering, and integration, where criminals move and disguise illegal income using techniques like structuring, smurfing, and micro structuring.

Explore how Pakistan's weak AML/CFT regime triggered FATF grey-listing, eroding foreign exchange reserves, and driving declines in GDP and foreign direct investment.

Explore how money laundering and terrorist financing unfold through typologies and electronic fund transfers, such as terminals, mobile devices, Swift, Fedwire, and cryptocurrency, aligned with Fatf 40 recommendations.

Explore electronic fund transfer (EFT) and mobile and internet payments, and how money mule accounts enable placement, layering, micro structuring, and offshore wire transfers.

Explore how open loop and closed loop cards, issued by banks and processed by third parties and acquiring banks, enable international non face-to-face payments and relate to money laundering layering.

Differentiate fiat currency from virtual currency, cryptocurrency, and non-convertible currencies. Explore blockchain, mining, anonymity, and privacy coins such as Monero and Dash in money laundering and terrorist financing.

Learn about money service businesses, including money changers and remittance firms, their services like transmitting money and currency conversion, and their vulnerability to money laundering due to limited AML/CFT programs.

Examine how money launderers use life insurance with cash surrender value and annuities, cancelling policies quickly while brokers or agents with minimal supervision may overlook signs of money laundering.

Securities brokers face money laundering risks, weak anti-money-laundering programs, and lack of know your customer and transaction monitoring, fueling insider trading, securities fraud, and pump-and-dump schemes.

Explore how casinos enable money laundering through placement and layering, including junkets, high rollers, online gambling, mule accounts, Hundi, and digital scams.

Explore how money laundering exploits designated non-financial professionals, such as precious metals and diamond dealers, by leveraging gold’s portability and pool accounts to move illicit funds.

Explore how art and non-fungible tokens enable money laundering via bidding and anonymity, and how regulators deploy know your customer and anti-money laundering measures.

Explore how gatekeepers such as notaries, accountants, auditors, and lawyers identify clients, conduct due diligence, and report suspicious activities, and how ownership structures enable money laundering and tax evasion.

Real estate serves as a vehicle for money laundering, illustrated by Somali pirates in Nairobi and Mombasa, with escrow accounts, reverse flips, and loan-back schemes.

Explain how correspondent banking relies on nostro accounts and direct relationships between respondent and correspondent banks to enable cross-border payments, while outlining aml/cft due diligence and risk controls.

Explore how corporations and complex ownership structures conceal beneficial owners and drive money laundering, and learn to apply know your customer principles to identify true owners.

Explore politically exposed persons (PEPs), their reputational and illicit transaction risks for financial firms, and the importance of customer due diligence to identify true identities and beneficial owners.

Explore trade based money laundering and how letters of credit enable overinvoicing, under-invoicing, and phantom shipping to disguise illicit proceeds.

Understand how terrorism financing funds attacks and supports terrorists, driven by political or ideological aims, and differs from money laundering by motive and source, including legitimate funds and recruitment.

Explore hawala and other informal value transfer systems, where trust and aliases enable debt-based remittance with little paper trail, front businesses, and trade-based money laundering risks.

Examine how non profit organizations can be misused for terrorism financing, fueled by cash donations and limited regulation, and apply mitigations like full program budgets, independent internal and external audits.

Analyze how self-funding from legitimate sources: employment income, social assistance, family support, and bank loans fuels self-radicalization and attacks on soft targets worldwide via social media and online networks.

Explore how terrorists raise funds through social media and crowdfunding, use electronic fund transfers and cryptocurrencies (including privacy coins), and exploit natural resources such as wildlife trafficking and illegal mining.

Analyze the global threat of weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons, and how their proliferation destabilizes security and triggers sanctions such as those on North Korea.

Trace sanctions history from 1940 freezing order to formation of the office of foreign funds control, later OFAC, and learn how targeted, sectoral, and comprehensive sanctions financially isolate regimes.

The course takes you from CAMS certification to advanced CAMS audit, cyber security, and data science, emphasizing real-world AML/CFT problem solving and continuous learning.