By PAUL O’DONOGHUE, Senior Correspondent
OFFICIALS in the Netherlands have developed a new AI (artificial intelligence) chatbot to aid financial crime investigators.
The Netherlands FIOD (Fiscal Information and Investigation Service) said that the tool enables law enforcement to quickly sort through large amounts of data.
“The FIOD has conducted research into the ways that AI could contribute to criminal investigations,” the organization said in its 2024 annual report.
“One experiment involved a smart chatbot that assists with questions about investigative procedures. [It] offers interpretations of laws and regulations, and references relevant case law.”
The agency said it is also attempting to look at other ways of using AI to fight financial crime.
“Another experiment involves an AI tool that helps analyze large quantities of communication messages. These include seized phones and laptops,” the FIOD said.
“This tool can identify connections between messages that might be overlooked with a purely manual analysis.
“This investigative toolkit will continue to be developed further over the coming years.”
The agency added that AI tools allowed it to “examine the exponentially growing volume of seized data more quickly and effectively”.
The FIOD is the latest in a string of European financial crime bodies which have started using AI.
BaFin, Germany’s Financial Intelligence Unit, made a similar announcement in June. It said that it has started using AI to help it spot market abuse and suspicious patterns in trading.
French officials have also started using AI. France uncovered €16.7 billion in fraud in 2024, double the amount detected five years ago. It said the rise was due in part to the “increased use of AI targeting” during investigations.
The FIOD’s 2024 annual report also said the agency is increasingly focusing on digital investigations.
“Digital expertise is now essential to the investigative process,” it said.
“The FIOD employs many individuals who have made a career out of professional digital investigation.
“In 2024, for example, the FIOD acquired extensive specialist knowledge on tracing money flows through the blockchain. And the seizure of cryptocurrencies.”
It also stated it is “further expanding its digital expertise” by partnering with universities.
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