Just as new applications of artificial intelligence are enabling financial crimes around the world, AI is also being employed to stem the losses. Unfortunately, at present, it appears the bad guys are winning.
Between 2023 and 2025, the compound annual growth rate of global illicit financial flows was an estimated 19.2%, reaching $4.4 trillion last year.
That’s according to a study published by Nasdaq Verafin, a financial crime management platform that helps banks and credit unions detect, investigate and report money laundering and financial fraud.
The statistics revealed by the study comprise a wide range of criminal activities, including corruption, money laundering, tax evasion, trafficking, sanctions evasion, the movement of fraud proceeds and other predicate offenses.
Taken together, the numbers paint an alarming picture, with 2025 featuring the following estimated illicit flows:
- $1.1 trillion in drug trafficking activity, representing CAGR of 17.1% since 2023
- Fraud scams and bank-fraud schemes totaling $579.4 billion, for CAGR of 9.2% over the two-year period
- $528.5 billion in human trafficking, with CAGR of 23.5%
- $16.2 billion in terrorist financing, with CAGR of 18.8%
And the true toll was even worse. Despite the robust study, which was performed by Celent Research, the above estimates “comprise only a fraction of the true scope of financial crime, given the sheer volume of obfuscated, undetected or unreported illicit activity,” Nasdaq Verafin acknowledged in its research report.
Unfortunately, criminals have always been at the forefront of adopting new technology, and AI is no exception. However, the report noted, the latest advances in AI technology, together with the collective intelligence of the public and private sectors, stand as the financial community’s most powerful tools in the current financial crime epidemic.
“AI presents both the biggest challenge and [biggest] opportunity in stopping illicit activity,” the report stated. “By and large, the [financial] industry recognizes that winning the technology arms race will be critical to protect the financial system from the criminals that look to exploit it.”
As part of its research, Celent surveyed 505 anti-crime executives from financial institutions, 80% of whom said they plan to increase spending on AI technologies over the next two years. Even more of them (90%) said AI-driven attacks have increased over the past two years, and 88% said their anti-crime headcount increased from 2024 to 2025.
Geographically, the global $4.4 trillion total of illicit activity revealed by the study was split evenly among the Americas ($1.6 trillion), Europe/Middle East/Africa ($1.4 trillion) and Asia-Pacific ($1.4 trillion). Their CAGR since 2023 has differed, though — 24.0%, 21.4% and 12.2%, respectively.
The global value of illicit cross-border activity totaled $482.9 billion last year.
