BioCatch’s first-ever dark economy survey says criminal enterprises today are more sophisticated at laundering money than financial institutions are at detecting that laundering.
Published this week, Insights Into the Invisible: Perspectives on Evolving Fraud and AML Challenges highlights the year-over-year growth in both fraud attempts and fraud losses in every region surveyed except for Asia Pacific, where nine of the 10 largest banks in Australia work with BioCatch, which prevents financial crime by recognising patterns in human behaviour.
“Many millions of money mule accounts hidden within the world’s financial system remain the nexus between criminal operations and those criminals realising their profits,” said BioCatch CEO Gadi Mazor. “Identifying those accounts before they can launder any money is absolutely vital in our fight against financial crime. To effectively do so will require continued innovation, a pivot from a post-transaction to pre-transaction mindset, and an unprecedented degree of collaboration across all sectors.”
Nearly half of dark economy survey respondents say their organisation loses more than USD10 million to fraud every year, while 8% (64 banking leaders) say their institutions loses more than USD50 million to fraud every year. Those whose organisation had invested in behaviour-based solutions were less likely to lose substantial amounts to fraud year-over-year compared to those without behavioural defences.
A staggering 89% of respondents agree that combatting money laundering on a larger scale requires more regulatory intervention, while only 13% say individual bad actors are more likely to perpetrate fraud than criminal groups. According to Nasdaq’s Global Financial Crime Report, USD3.1 trillion in illicit funds moved through the world’s financial system in 2023 alone. That estimate might be conservative.
Equally concerning, 83% of respondents agree there exists a link between fraud and other crimes like terrorism and the trafficking of drugs and people.
Other key survey findings include:
-
Criminals embrace emerging tech: Respondents overwhelmingly say AI tools (78%), social media (76%), and dark web forums (73%) have increased the sophistication of financial crime;
-
The dark economy a priority: The vast majority (84%) of those surveyed agree combatting the dark economy is important;
-
Global success, local skepticism: More than three quarters (77%) of respondents believe global banks are winning the war on financial crime, but only 55% believe their organisation is making an impact in this fight; and
-
An AML disconnect: While 61% of those surveyed say one instance of money laundering often leads to other related cases, 41% say their organisation typically limits its investigation to only the individual account in question.
In November, the five largest banks in the country joined BioCatch Trust, the world’s first behaviour and device-based real-time financial crime intelligence sharing network, protecting member bank customers against fraud and scams by assessing in real time the trustworthiness of the accounts to which they direct their transfers and payments.
“BioCatch customers identified and acted on nearly 2.3 million mule accounts in 2024,” said BioCatch Director of Global Fraud Intelligence Thomas Peacock. “Already in 2025, they’ve detected more than 500,000 such accounts used for laundering money. As these numbers only continue to grow, it’s clear criminals are almost certainly laundering money through every major bank on the planet.”
