As the World Cup kicks off we’re taking a look at the sport which is estimated to have over 4 billion followers across the globe. Unsurprisingly with a fanbase that large - soccer now operates on an industrial scale. In fact, it’s valued at about 200 billion dollars.

It’s no surprise then that the sport sometimes referred to as “the beautiful game” can attract an ugly underbelly. So has the evolution of football in Europe left it vulnerable to bad actors and what will new AML regulations mean for agents and clubs?

Plus, as the World Cup kicks off this week across Canada, Mexico and the USA, AML Intelligence’s Paul O’Donoghue explains why events at this scale are so attractive to criminals looking to defraud fans, traffic victims or move dirty money across borders…

So what are the main financial crime risks presented by a global event like this?

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Money laundering, fraud and scams, and the people behind it, don’t recognise international boarders. So tackling these sophisticated international criminal networks requires law enforcement to rely on international and inter-agency coordination.

Europol is the intelligence agency based in the heart of Europe, working alongside and co-ordinating with local and regional law enforcement operations.

Jean Phillippe Lecouffe, Deputy Executive of Operations at Europol, spoke with Collared recently and gave us an unique insight to the agency. We also speak to Tommas Kaplan about his early career combating terrorism and terrorist financing as an undercover police detective.

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The field of financial crime detection has changed a lot in three decades and our next guest has observed this evolution from a unique vantage point. Jim Lee started his career in the 1990, working as a special agent for the IRS where he ultimately became Chief of Criminal Investigations before leaving the organisation in 2024 Today, he is Global Head of Capacity Building at Chainalysis. In our conversation, he reflects on the remarkable pace of change he’s observed and his work leading the teams who have unraveled some of the most complex financial crimes the world has ever seen.

PLUS AML Intelligences Senior Correspondent Paul O’Donoghue explains exactly what FATF’s Grey Lists and Black Lists are, how they work, their economic implications, and what it really means for a country to be put on one of these lists.

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