Global Financial Crime and Anti-Corruption Academy - In-Person

• Examine the relationship among corruption, fraud, money laundering, organized crime, and other forms of financial misconduct.
• Learn how to treat due diligence as an independent fact-finding process—not a checklist or one-time administrative task.
• Develop clear, testable investigative hypotheses from claims, representations, and identified risks.
• Distinguish expressed claims, implied claims, and facts that must be true for a proposed transaction or relationship to succeed.
• Evaluate the reliability, relevance, completeness, age, and purpose of information.
• Identify missing information, contradictions, inconsistencies, and potential fatal flaws.
• Apply risk-based due diligence to customers, employees, executives, suppliers, agents, intermediaries, investments, and acquisition targets.
• Examine global organized-crime structures and the movement of illicit funds, goods, and people.
• Consider sanctions, trade restrictions, money laundering, legal exposure, financial risk, and reputational risk.
• Design a due-diligence engagement with an appropriate purpose, scope, budget, timetable, and investigative team.
• Determine when internal resources are sufficient and when outside investigators or subject-matter experts are needed.
• Document findings in concise, factual reports that support informed executive and board-level decisions.
• Participate in practical exercises and case studies drawn from real-world financial crime and due-diligence challenges.
• Complete applicable AACI certification paperwork with assistance from L. Burke Files.

The Global Financial Crime Environment

• The relationship between fraud, corruption, money laundering, sanctions evasion, trafficking, counterfeiting, and organized crime
• How legitimate businesses and financial systems are exploited
• International criminal networks and cross-border financial flows
• Geographic, political, cultural, legal, and regulatory risk
• The role of professional intermediaries and third parties

Anti-Corruption Governance

• Tone at the top and management accountability
• Corruption prevention, deterrence, detection, and corrective action
• Internal control and fraud-risk management
• Conflicts of interest, improper incentives, and abuse of entrusted authority
• Whistleblower reporting and anonymous tip systems
• The responsibilities of boards, executives, auditors, and compliance professionals

Investigative Due Diligence

• Defining due diligence as an independent fact-finding process
• “Trust but verify” as a disciplined investigative approach
• Investigating expressed and implied representations
• Developing and testing hypotheses
• Separating reliable facts from assumptions, repetition, rumor, and marketing claims
• Identifying information gaps and contradictory evidence
• Enhanced due diligence for high-risk parties and transactions

Customer and Third-Party Risk

• Customer, counterparty, supplier, and intermediary due diligence
• High-risk and ultra-high-risk relationships
• Beneficial ownership and control
• Sanctions and international trade restrictions
• Origin of funds, assets, products, and raw materials
• Third-party access to intellectual property and critical information
• Ongoing monitoring after onboarding

Designing the Investigation

• Establishing the purpose and intended users of the investigation
• Defining a proportionate scope
• Identifying legal, operational, financial, regulatory, and reputational risks
• Building an internal and external investigative team
• Using subject-matter, geographic, cultural, and language experts
• Managing information access and communication
• Prioritizing research and maintaining an information-feedback loop

Evaluating the Business

• People, backgrounds, education, employment, licenses, and credentials
• Suppliers, supply-chain fragility, quality, timeliness, and source of materials
• Geographic location and the location of effective management
• Real property ownership, title, liens, condition, and environmental exposure
• Facilities, operational capacity, deferred maintenance, and suitability
• Intellectual property and critical information
• Products, services, customers, markets, costs, and competitive position
• Environmental emissions, permits, monitoring, and related liabilities
• Marketing and advertising representations

Findings and Reporting

• Reporting facts rather than unsupported opinions
• Writing concise, declarative findings
• Documenting confirmations, contradictions, and incongruities
• Communicating fatal flaws without prematurely terminating the investigation
• Preparing reports for executives, boards, investors, and other decision-makers
• Conducting post-engagement reviews and improving future investigations

The Global Financial Crime and Anti-Corruption Academy provides an integrated examination of financial crime, corruption, organized crime, fraud, money laundering, sanctions exposure, and investigative due diligence.

Participants learn to view due diligence as a continuing process of developing and testing hypotheses. Claims made by customers, executives, employees, suppliers, intermediaries, and transaction counterparties must be compared with independently obtained facts. Participants will examine how to determine whether information is relevant, complete, reliable, and sufficient to support an informed decision.

The Academy also addresses the organizational environment in which due diligence either succeeds or fails. Effective investigations require independence, professional skepticism, adequate resources, access to information, management support, and sufficient time. Investigators must resist pressure to produce a predetermined “yes” report or ignore information that conflicts with management’s preferred outcome.

Through case studies and practical applications, participants will learn how to scope an engagement, assemble the right team, locate and assess evidence, investigate material inconsistencies, recognize fatal flaws, and communicate findings to decision-makers.

Participants will be better prepared to:

• Recognize corruption and financial crime risks that conventional compliance checklists may miss.
• Conduct more effective customer, employee, supplier, investment, and acquisition due diligence.
• Challenge unsupported claims and management assumptions professionally.
• Identify connections among fraud, corruption, money laundering, sanctions evasion, and organized crime.
• Evaluate the quality and limitations of databases, documents, interviews, and third-party research.
• Develop risk-based investigative plans that use time and resources efficiently.
• Determine when enhanced due diligence or outside expertise is necessary.
• Identify concealed ownership, conflicts of interest, reputational threats, and transactional warning signs.
• Protect intellectual property and critical organizational information.
• Produce clearer, more defensible investigative reports.
• Provide executives, boards, and audit committees with facts needed to make informed choices.
• Strengthen their professional qualifications through the applicable AACI certification process.

L. Burke Files is an international financial investigator, due-diligence expert, anti-corruption authority, author, and consultant with experience involving matters in more than 130 countries.

He serves as President of Financial Examinations & Evaluations, Inc. and the American Anti-Corruption Institute and is a co-founder of the International Due Diligence Organization. His work encompasses complex financial investigations, asset recovery, fraud, money laundering, corruption, international business risk, and enhanced due diligence.

Mr. Files brings participants a practitioner’s perspective developed through decades of international engagements. His instruction emphasizes professional skepticism, disciplined fact-finding, practical investigation, and the difference between information that appears credible and information that can withstand scrutiny.

He is an award-winning author and has been quoted or featured by major international media and professional publications. His ability to translate complex financial crime schemes and due-diligence failures into understandable lessons makes this Academy especially valuable for auditors, investigators, compliance professionals, and decision-makers.

Mr. Files will also coordinate the participants’ applicable certification documentation with The American Anti-Corruption Institute. Read more about L. Burke Files and AACI