This course provides an overview of the actions investigators can take at the outset of a financial crime investigation. Students learn to ask critical questions, gather documentation, and analyze information for leads. Topics include obtaining and working with financial records, red flags in financial cases, money laundering, investigative strategies for different types of financial crimes, and commingled funds.
This course addresses the critical need for well-trained intelligence analysts to interpret growing amounts of information. Topics include the intelligence cycle, analytical thinking skills, the importance of strategic analysis, communication and social media analysis, recommendation development, and legal and ethical issues. Students work hands-on with specialized software to synthesize information and develop various products of intelligence. The course was developed by a consortium that included NW3C, Law Enforcement Intelligence Units (LEIU), the International Association of Law Enforcement Intelligence Analysis (IALEIA), and the Regional Information Sharing System (RISS).
*Analysis basics. History and purpose of intelligence analysis. Legal issues and ethics. Sources of information. The intelligence cycle.
*Types of analysis. Crime patterns. Associations. Flow. Communications. Financial analysis.
*Creative and critical thinking. Brainstorming. Mind mapping. Steps to critical thinking.
*Deterring crime. Strategic analysis as a tool for law enforcement personnel.
*Hands-on experience. Work as part of a team to analyze information pertaining to several hypothetical cases.
This course promotes a multi-agency approach to the problem of financial exploitation of senior citizens. Topics include working with senior victims, examining documents like bank records and power of attorney, and resources for investigation and community awareness. Detailed examination of a case study from initial complaint to prosecution reinforces and illustrates the course content. With a dual focus on financial abuse by trusted persons and common scams aimed at seniors, the course introduces senior-specific investigative skills while facilitating networking and cooperation that can extend out of the classroom and into real cases.
This course provides students with the fundamental knowledge and skills necessary to perform a limited digital forensic examination, validate hardware and software tools, and effectively use digital forensic suites and specialized tools. The course begins with a detailed study of the digital forensic examination process, including documentation, case management, evidence handling, validation, and virtualization. Students learn to use todays leading commercial and open source digital forensic suites: Magnet Axiom, X-ways Forensic, and Autopsy. Instruction on each suite will include an interface overview, configuration, hashing, file signature analysis, keyword searching, data carving, bookmarking, and report creation.
*Digital forensic process. Evidence review; requests for examination; case management.
*Validation. Creation of validation images; validation testing.
*Effective tool usage. Tool interface; hashing; file signature analysis; data carving; searching; metadata; bookmarking.
*Reporting. General report structure; report templates; using tool-generated reports.
This course is for officers, investigators, and analysts who encounter cell phone evidence that includes information external to the phone. Class concepts include instruction on how to request, read, and analyze call detail records from cellular providers; and how to plot cellular site locations to determine the approximate position of a suspect during a given period. No special hardware or software is required. However, this course focuses heavily on analysis; as such, a strong working knowledge of Microsoft Excel is highly recommended. Students are provided with a free copy of NW3Cs PerpHound tool, which assists in the plotting of call detail record locations.
*Cellular technology. Land-line and cellular networks. Types and generations of cell phones. Cell site design and its implications for law enforcement.
*Analysis of call detail records. Request information from service providers. Convert records into a useful format. *Merge two related spreadsheets. Read and analyze using filters, sorting, and pivot tables. Plot location information.
*Hands-on experience. Hands-on experience with NW3Cs free software tool PerpHound and Microsoft Excel to analyze various types of records that are available from cellular providers.
This course provides the advanced skills and knowledge necessary to analyze data on iOS devices (iPod Touch, iPhone, and iPad) and Android devices at an advanced level. Students use forensically-sound tools and techniques to analyze potential evidence, employing advanced techniques to uncover evidence potentially missed or misrepresented by commercial forensic tools. Topics include identifying potential threats to data stored on devices, available acquisition options, accessing locked devices, and the default folder structure. Core skills include analyzing artifacts such as device information, call history, voicemail, messages, web browser history, contacts, and photos. Instruction is provided on developing the hunt methodology for analyzing third party applications not supported by commercial forensic tools.
Mobile device hardware fundamentals. How mobile devices work, store data, and interact with a variety of networks.
Device handling. Properly preserving data for imaging and analysis. Identifying potential threats to data integrity.
Device acquisition and security. Acquisition options (physical, logical, device backups). Bypassing passcodes and properly defeating encrypted backups of iOS devices.
Advanced analysis techniques. Mounting images, partitioning scheme and default folder structure, types of artifacts (plists, SQLite databases, etc.).
This course covers basic intelligence writing and briefing principles as well as methods for effective and clear intelligence sharing. Topics covered include creative and critical thinking, critical reading skills, source evaluation, privacy and civil rights, intelligence writing style and structure, and generating and presenting intelligence briefings. With guidance from experienced experts, students gain hands-on experience by working through data sets based on real cases to produce intelligence products. Instructors and peers provide feedback on briefings and reports produced and presented in class.
*Foundational skills. Creative thinking. Critical thinking. Critical reading.
*Information sources. Identify sources of intelligence information. Evaluate sources for validity and reliability.
*Analytical reports. Develop a structured and actionable analytical report based on a data set given in class.
*Privacy considerations. Ensure protection of privacy and civil rights while producing intelligence products.
*Briefings. Construct and deliver an intelligence briefing based on a data set given in class.
This three-day course is dedicated to studying the fundamentals of quantitative and qualitative data analysis and how to formulate arguments in support of criminal investigations and intelligence. Students will learn about data management techniques and a disciplined process to clean and standardize data in preparation for analysis. The course will also explore several common investigative objectives, including the discovery of associations between people and entities, the correlation between unlawful activity and suspects, behavioral affinities, and predictions. The course will introduce the Enterprise Theory of Crime and how to use network analysis to formulate conclusions about the structure of criminal organizations, their players and roles, the identification of facilitators, charting of financial arrangements, and connections to unlawful activity. The course enables the production of valuable, accurate, and efficient logical inferences produced by collecting data related to unlawful activity.
This three-day course covers the fundamentals of financial investigations and incorporates some of the more advanced processes that elevate an investigation. During this course, students will learn about investigative processes, practical tools, and sources of information necessary to plan and conduct financial investigations. The course begins with a description of the basic composition of elements within illicit financial networks and how they work to compromise legitimate business and financial sectors. Course material will describe government, regulatory, and investigative actions within the United States, and by international partners to detect and investigate illicit actors and networks. The course also includes considerations for investigation planning and promotion of creative thinking.
An effective financial investigation can disrupt terrorism organizations and interrupt, deter, or even stop operational terrorism activities before they can begin. In this three-day course, students develop an understanding of how financial systems are used to support terrorism activities and transnational criminal organizations. Students will work with tools and methods to investigate the manipulation of financial, communication, and business systems used for illicit purposes. Students will learn how to work with suspicious activity reports, crucial financial records such as Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications (SWIFT) messaging, and records used in banking and money services businesses. They will also learn how to gather information and evidence on other means of value transfer methods associated with money laundering, the black-market peso and forms of trade-based money laundering, hawala, and other alternate remittance systems, and virtual assets (cryptocurrency).