Attributive-criminological Characterization of ML/FT Crimes as a Method of Information Analysis in the AML/CFT System

The article proposes a methodological approach to the analysis of intelligence and financial information by applying the - attributive - forensic characterization of ML/FT crimes (AFCC). The purpose of using AFCC is to obtain the highest level of certainty (probability) of criminal events and various types of connections with them, which coherently reflect the characteristics of a given crime (ML/FT). This pursuit of "certainty" is understandably associated with assigning an act to a specific person and demonstrating its occurrence as penalized behavior. But also a transition from the state of probability of threat - used at the level of risk analysis and the use of mitigants to neutralize it, to the state of actual typing of elements of crime threat. The introduction of AFCC should affect the general organization and tactics of criminal investigations in the field of ML/FT using identification and analytical mechanisms (for risk assessment purposes) available to the countermeasure system itself based on IO (obligated institutions) - national FIU (Financial Intelligence Unit) relations. AFCC broadens the scope of the search for and interpretation of facts/events that can be linked in the IO to the characteristics of money laundering and money laundering crimes. AFCC aims to give information vectors to information generated already at the stage of its possession in the IO. These vectors may be multiple and determined also by factors internal and external to the IO, but they are characterized by the evidentiary direction of the future investigation.. The AFCC method, on the other hand, offers the potential to strengthen the evidentiary process of "suspicious activity" identified analytically and then procedurally by the ML/FT perpetrator. For these purposes, it is crucial to develop a suspiciousness attribute within the IO that will identify suspicious behavior, transactions, and relationships between the client and the institution. Actions undertaken using this factor can contribute to establishing both a monetary and criminal trail.