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- Lo Furneaux
Trust:Live 2022
Updated: Feb 24
Earlier this week, JP Morgan-Chase CEO Jamie Dimon was heard warning clients that the coming recession has a 30% chance of being worse than the financial crisis of 2008; thanks to the current combination of oil shortages, political tensions, rampant inflation and war on the world stage. Since the last financial crisis seriously undermined the public’s trust in the banking system to keep their hard-earned money safe, it’s no surprise that more people are turning to virtual alternatives like cryptocurrency or NFTs to store their funds ahead of the coming recession.
Unfortunately, the blockchain technology that supports the majority of these digital currencies can often be too complicated for the average consumer to understand, leading to a rise in criminal activity on these platforms as fraudsters try to target vulnerable and new users.
Despite this significant rise in crypto-related fraud, there is a complete lack of basic protections for users when their digital assets are lost or stolen. While some companies build processes to help their users with recovery, the majority of victims are left to try and recover their stolen assets themselves and often end up being tricked into handing over more of their money by scammers posing as recovery aids.
As part of our mission to make the crypto ecosystem safer for everyone, our co-founder & CEO Aidan Larkin was invited by LexisNexis Risk Solutions to speak at Trust:Live 2022 last May. This exclusive in-person conference brought together a group of leading experts in the technology, law enforcement and financial sectors to discuss their collective thoughts on the current state of the digital economy.
Those in attendance enjoyed a comprehensive program of panel discussions, presentations and immersive exhibits that covered everything from emerging technologies, advanced analytics and innovative investigation techniques to the changing state of the world and the relationship between trust and technology.
Aidan’s panel focused on the need for a more collaborative approach to global asset management. He was joined by Helena Wood, a Senior Research Fellow and Head of the UK Economic Crime Programme at Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) and Mike Haley CEO of CIFAS, a leading non-profit fraud prevention body in the UK. The panel was moderated by Karen Baxter, a Specialist Advisor for Economic, Serious and Organised crime & Senior Associate Fellow at RUSI.
He explained that the cryptocurrency ecosystem is not bound by traditional geography which can often present unique challenges for asset recovery professionals each and every time they try to recover stolen assets across multinational borders. He encouraged agencies to ignore the historic barriers between the public and private sectors and share their collective knowledge, experience and best practices to increase the effectiveness of asset recovery around the world; particularly when dealing with complex virtual assets like cryptocurrency and NFTs.
Aidan was keen to stress that these joint efforts will go a long way to help victims affected by the increasing number of crypto-related scams: “There are many opportunities in the crypto ecosystem for private sector companies to work closely with law enforcement to reunite victims with their stolen crypto and improve asset recovery efforts internationally. The more that we can collaborate and innovate in this sector the better the results will be for victims, governments and creditors alike.”
If you would like to know more about our work in crypto-related frauds and asset recovery, contact connect@assetreality.com
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