Financial investigations play a crucial role in combating organised crime, corruption, terrorism financing, and other serious offences by uncovering the financial trails that underpin criminal activities. Following the money often provides the most effective way to identify criminal networks, recover illicit assets, and strengthen the rule of law. In today’s complex financial landscape—marked by digital currencies, global money flows, and sophisticated laundering schemes—enhancing investigative skills and international cooperation is more vital than ever. The aim of this webinar is to showcase contemporary financial investigation practices within the EU by presenting real case studies from various areas of financial intelligence, analysis, and investigation. This event is the second episode of a CEPOL webinar series dedicated to sharing practical cases from Austria, the Czech Republic, Greece, Italy, Portugal, Romania, Spain, and Sweden. This webinar will present cases from Italy, Spain and Portugal involving money-laundering investigations linked to predicate offences such as drug trafficking, fraud and the use of false invoices. In addition, the session will showcase an investigation into a terrorism-financing case involving cryptocurrency and another on Chinese money-laundering scheme. A Trafficking in Human Beings case will also be examined, highlighting how financial-flow analysis combined with wiretapping uncovered the key members of the organised crime group. Experts will present effective investigative techniques, including traditional methods, cryptocurrency tracing, countering underground banking, identifying money mules. They will also discuss aspects of international collaboration, the collection of crucial evidence for court proceedings, and other key elements of financial investigations—while openly addressing common challenges and enforcement difficulties.
By the end of this webinar, the audience will be able to:

• Identify key intelligence sources and innovative financial investigative methods;
• Recognise examples of crime patterns;
• Discuss methods of tracing criminal assets;
• Debate the possibilities and difficulties of law enforcement cooperation within the EU.