## Fighting Tech-Fueled Crime

## Source details

**Canonical URL:** [Fighting Tech-Fueled Crime](https://www.imf.org/en/publications/fandd/issues/2025/09/fighting-tech-fueled-crime-chady-el-khoury)

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## Bibliographic details
- Authors: CHADY EL KHOURY
- Published: September 3, 2025

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### Overview
- Authorities must respond as digital tools accelerate financial crime.
- CHADY EL KHOURY is assistant general counsel in the IMF’s Legal Department.
- Opinions expressed are those of the author; they do not necessarily reflect IMF policy.
- The Department of Justice announced the largest-ever US crypto seizure: "$225 million" from pig butchering crypto scams.
- The DOJ investigation tracked thousands of wallets used to scam "more than 400 victims."

### Scale and methods of tech‑enabled crime
- Annual illicit crypto activity growth has averaged "about 25 percent" in recent years and may have surpassed "$51 billion last year," according to Chainalysis.
- Common technologies and tactics used by criminals:
  - AI-generated profiles and identities.
  - Encrypted messaging apps for coordination and concealment.
  - Obscured blockchain transactions and decentralized exchanges.
  - Stablecoins and lightly regulated virtual asset platforms to hide bribes and embezzled funds.
  - AI-enabled impersonation, voice-cloning, fake-document generators, deepfakes, and bots to deceive banks and evasion of controls.
- Traditional modalities remain important:
  - Money laundering still relies on banks, informal money changers, and cash couriers.
  - Criminals combine old and new methods to thwart detection.

### Challenges confronting authorities
- Enforcement lags as criminals rapidly adapt and pick best tools for schemes.
- Jurisdictional barriers, legacy systems, underresourced agencies, and procedural constraints impede cross-border investigations.
- Antiquated correspondent banking networks can obscure and delay transactions, raising costs and creating oversight gaps.
- Delays in implementing the FATF’s “travel rule” hinder timely identification of originators and beneficiaries in cross-border transfers.
- Tracking proceeds from organized crime is nearly impossible for agencies lacking technological capacity and resources.

### Innovations in payments and implications for AML/CFT
- Regional and national innovations illustrate tradeoffs between inclusion/efficiency and AML/CFT risks:
  - Singapore and Thailand linked fast payment systems enabling real-time retail transfers using mobile numbers.
  - Indonesia and Malaysia connected QR codes for cross-border payments.
  - India’s Unified Payments Interface enables seamless transfers across apps and platforms, with "more than 18 billion monthly transactions" demonstrating scale from interoperability.
- FATF actions:
  - An FATF June recommendation requires originator and beneficiary information for cross-border wire transfers—including those involving virtual assets—to enhance traceability.
- IMF work on “safe payment corridors”:
  - Focuses on transparency, interoperability, and risk-based regulation to preserve access while maintaining financial integrity.
  - A pilot with Samoa showed how targeted safeguards and collaboration with regulated providers can preserve remittances access without disrupting new payment platforms.

### Machine learning, capacity building, and regulatory modernization
- Several countries, with IMF guidance, are investing in machine learning to detect anomalies in cross-border financial flows.
- Governments are:
  - Investing in capacity to trace crypto transfers and tightening regulation of virtual asset service providers.
  - Employing blockchain analytics firms to assist investigations.
- Legal and supervisory needs:
  - Legal frameworks must adapt to enable timely access to digital evidence while preserving due process.
  - Supervisory models should evolve to oversee banks and nonbank financial institutions offering cross-border services.
  - Regulators and fintechs should partner; multilateral engagement should promote fast, cheap, transparent, and traceable cross-border payments anchored in interoperable standards that respect privacy.
- Institutional investments and partnerships:
  - Invest in regulatory technology, such as AI-powered transaction monitoring and blockchain analysis.
  - Equip agencies with tools and expertise to detect complex crypto schemes and synthetic identity fraud.
  - Hire and retain data scientists and financial crime specialists.
  - Bring virtual assets under AML/CFT regulation.
  - Promote public-private partnerships to codevelop tools to spot emerging risks.
  - Back FATF and Financial Stability Board global standards with national investments in effective AML/CFT frameworks.

### Risks of fragmented implementation and urgency
- Fragmented and uneven responses leave openings for criminals and can undermine financial integrity.
- Growing technological advantage of criminals over governments threatens to:
  - Destabilize economies.
  - Weaken fragile institutions.
  - Erode public trust in safety and fairness systems.
- The piece emphasizes that governments cannot wait while criminals continue to adopt and adapt emerging technologies.

### Additional media
- A podcast with IMF assistant general counsel Chady El Khoury discusses how the anonymity of virtual currency transactions is supercharging criminals’ ability to grow their empires.

*Fighting Tech-Fueled Crime, CHADY EL KHOURY, September 2025*

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## Content in this bundle

- **Fighting Tech-Fueled Crime**
  - [Fighting Tech-Fueled Crime (Markdown version)](/-/media/files/publications/fandd/article/2025/09/el-khoury.pdf.md){rel="alternate" type="text/markdown"}
  - [Fighting Tech-Fueled Crime (PDF)](/-/media/files/publications/fandd/article/2025/09/el-khoury.pdf){rel="external" type="application/pdf"}

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_Source: https://www.imf.org/en/publications/fandd/issues/2025/09/fighting-tech-fueled-crime-chady-el-khoury_