On 12 and 13 October 2015, the VCDNP hosted the second workshop on open source analysis methods organised by the International Centre for Security Analysis of King's College London. This workshop brought together researchers, academics, and industry professionals from the financial sector to discuss the theme of "Exploiting Financial Open Source Information in Support of Non-Proliferation."
The workshop was divided into presentation sessions and discussion groups. Presentations addressed proliferation financing and the use of financial information to disrupt illicit networks, lessons from past cases of financial investigations, the structure and role of banking and regulatory practices in relation to money laundering and proliferation financing, and emerging challenges and phenomena such as the growth and dissemination of "virtual currencies."
In the discussion groups, representatives from the financial sector voiced clear calls for the proliferation community to assist banks in identifying behaviors and other indicators of suspicious activity. Participants also identified assorted bureaucratic hurdles that hamper information-sharing among private sector institutions and governments and across jurisdictions.
Throughout the two-day workshop, participants repeatedly emphasized the importance of information-sharing between the financial community and the non-proliferation community. With the right kind of cooperation, carried out in a timely fashion, the ability of financial institutions and national financial intelligence units to detect and disrupt proliferation financing could be strengthened.
