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 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 prepares students to identify various artifacts typically located in property lists and SQLite databases on MacOS-based computers, as well as learn how to perform forensic analysis. Students gain hands-on practical experience writing basic SQL queries and using to analyze operating system artifacts that includes, but is not limited to, user login passwords, FaceTime, messages, mail, contacts, calendars, reminders, notes, photos, Safari, Google Chrome, and Mozilla Firefox.
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 intermediate spreadsheeting course uses Microsoft Excel to assess and organize data in an electronic format. The class is designed for learners who have experience using Excel and who want to increase their spreadsheeting knowledge and skills. Topics include text functions, absolute referencing, date and time functions, flash fill, handling formula errors, VLOOKUP, dynamic arrays, and data validation. The course combines live demonstrations, instructor-led exercises, and independent student exercises.
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).
This course introduces the problem of intellectual property theft and provides tools, techniques, and resources for investigating and prosecuting these crimes. A combination of lecture, discussion, and interactive exercises illustrates the potential dangers and economic repercussions of counterfeit products, as well as best practices and techniques for investigating IP theft. Students are provided with a state-specific folder that includes relevant statutes, sample organizational documents for IP investigations, and additional resources for investigators and prosecutors.
This course is presented in collaboration with the National Association of Attorneys General (NAAG).
Awareness. Types of IP crimes. The criminals who commit these crimes. Impacts and dangers.
Investigation. Online and traditional techniques. Working with brand experts and the private sector. Large amounts of evidence. Resources.
Statutes. Prosecutorial theories. State-specific discussion.
Hands-on experience. Work with real counterfeit products. Identify fakes with expert guidance.
This course introduces analysts to the broader concepts of connecting the dots through link analysis. A critical portion of conducting a successful analytical investigation is the ability to link together and understand the complexities of the connectedness between people and organizations. Introduction to Link Analysis (ILA) expands on the basic principles of link and association analyses explored in the Foundations of Intelligence Analysis Training (FIAT) while building a framework for more advanced methods such as social network analysis.
Expanding basic knowledge of link and association analysis
Explaining the process of social network analysis
Understanding the visual mapping and mathematical components associated with link and social network analyses
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 hands-on investigative training at a basic level. Students develop the practical skills, insight, and knowledge necessary to manage a successful financial investigation from start to finish, including the acquisition and examination of financial records, interview skills, and case management and organization. Additional topics include forgery and embezzlement, financial exploitation of the elderly, working with spreadsheets, financial profiling, and state-specific statutes and legal issues.
*Emerging issues. Current trends in various types of financial crimes. Recent cases and their implications.
*Financial records. Learn to obtain and manage bank records, including basic spreadsheeting skills.
*Working with data. Extract leads and draw conclusions from bank records and other financial data.
*Hands-on experience. Work a mock financial case as part of an investigative team.