Sophisticated crypto-fueled confidence scams are going to be a growing problem. This year, we’ve seen high-profile cases where shocking levels of credulity were afforded to social engineers by people who definitely should have known better.

And tether, a cryptocurrency pegged to the price of the US dollar, has given scammers a perfect resource to untraceably fleece their victims.

Last year, $5.6 billion was stolen from Americans in crypto scams. I expect this to get worse.

No more “ignorance is bliss”.

The “failure to prevent fraud” offence aims to exert pressure on those at the top of larger organizations to ensure that those at the bottom are following and enforcing compliance. This comes into force in the UK in September 2025.

And it’s just not UK entities that need to take heed, non-UK organizations could be prosecuted if an employee/associated person commits fraud in the UK.

The National Crime Agency (NCA) is poised to be the new sheriff in town after successfully prosecuting individuals for attempting to solicit a bribe, under Section 2 of the Bribery Act 2010.

Expect more covert tactics and more prosecutions in 2025.

Financial crime is vast and complicated. In 2024, according to Nasdaq, $3.1 trillion in illicit funds flowed through the global financial system.

Money laundering for the purposes of human trafficking, drug trafficking and terrorist financing were, and will continue to be, key challenges for the global financial industry.

Crypto and digital finance are other vulnerable sectors can and will be easily be targeted.

A story that highlighted the extent of the world’s financial crime problems for me this year was my colleague Julie DiMauro drawing attention to the fact that “pig butchering” is an burgeoning “industry” in many undeveloped nations.

The scale of the challenge is clearly immense. And I fear that as such “industries” continue to expand in countries where only lip service is paid to the rule of the law the effect will be a further fragmentation of an already fragile global economy.

Disappointingly, irrespective of its posturing, China needs to be singled out here – choosing to turn a blind eye to the production and export of Fentanyl precursor chemicals or to the import and reprocessing by its indigenous industries of phones stolen from normal and very real victims overseas.

The very sad thing about all of this is that the people who stand to lose most are those preyed upon by criminal organizations in these countries who often have no choice but to participate in the “work”.

And it is likely that the lives of ordinary, law-abiding people will only get worse as a result of the near inevitable fragmentation of an embryonic global world order too.

With AI technology becoming more powerful by the day it is likely that criminals will employ it to enhance their scams and nefarious activities as well.

With the world still suffering from inflation and high cost of living standards, lots of people will still look for a quick win – which fraudsters will exploit to keep setting up fake investment opportunities to trick people.

Especially on social media platforms.

The financial crime space will continue to flourish in the age of AI as the advances offered by the technologies there are deployed by bad and state actors to maximum effect.