The control gap we probe
Surveillance is calibrated to price and volume anomalies rather than to economic rationale. A client who reliably loses money on fees is not an alert in most systems, and is one of the clearest indicators there is.
All sectors
Sector assessment
Capital Markets and Brokerage
9 laundering methods apply to this sector. 4 are rarely covered in standard AML training. The sector assessment uses 5 cases.
Laundering in capital markets looks exactly like trading, because it is trading.
Start The Securities Book — 8 minNo account required · Full debrief at the end
- Typologies for you
- 9
- Assessed
- 9
- Rarely trained
- 4
- Aimed at
- MLRO, Head of Surveillance, Compliance Advisory
Supervisory context
The Deutsche Bank mirror-trading settlements established that regulators will treat commercially pointless but genuine trades as a financial crime failure, penalised on both sides of the Atlantic.
Who this is for
Investment firms, brokers and fund managers are relevant persons. The distinction that matters internally is that market abuse surveillance and financial crime are separate obligations answering different questions, and a firm with a mature surveillance function often has neither the data nor the alerts to answer this one.
The Capital Markets Assessment
Not one case. Every case that exercises a typology on your list is part of your mark, weighted by how much of your exposure it carries. The weights are derived from the register rather than chosen, so adding a case re-derives them instead of leaving the old ones wrong.
- Cases in your assessment
- 5
- Time to sit all of them
- 38 min
- Typologies covered
- 9
- Left uncovered
- 0
| Case | Your typologies | Share of your mark |
|---|---|---|
| The Securities Bookwritten for your desk | 5 | 39% |
| The Trade Corridor | 3 | 23% |
| The Policy Book | 2 | 15% |
| The Relationship Review | 2 | 15% |
| The Onboarding Interview | 1 | 8% |
What you get for the price
£99one payment, 12 months, nothing renews
- All 5 cases in your sector assessment, about 38 minutes, plus every other case on the site
- Your mark for the Capital Markets Assessment, and a full debrief on every case naming each finding and its source
- A certificate recording exact CPD hours, publicly verifiable
- Re-sit any case as often as you like for 12 months
£750pilot, up to 25 people, invoiced
- Your whole team sits the Capital Markets Assessment, not a single case
- A gap report naming which of your 9 typologies the team detected and which they missed, with detection rates
- Every participant gets their own full debrief
- Deducted from a licence if you take one within 90 days
The 9 typologies that apply to this sector
Drawn from the full register and filtered to this sector. Each entry states what the typology looks like inside your own systems, and names the source it came from. 9 of the 9 are currently exercised by an assessment case; the rest are documented here and not yet built into one.
Corporate and identity2
Beneficial Ownership Obfuscation
In the assessment
Layered holding structures across free-zone and offshore jurisdictions terminate in a corporate nominee, so the declared beneficial owner is asserted rather than evidenced.
What the analyst sees
A structure chart that never evidences control, a nominee shareholder defeating verification, and a customer who offers further documents instead of an answer.
State-Owned Entity Exemption AbuseRarely covered in training
In the assessment
An entity claims government ownership to attract the lighter due diligence applied to state bodies, sometimes trading on a name close to a genuine state-linked company.
What the analyst sees
Due diligence closed out on an assertion of state ownership, and transaction volumes exceeding the plausible revenue of the entity the name resembles.
Payments infrastructure1
Correspondent Banking and Nested Downstream AccessRarely covered in training
In the assessment
A respondent bank provides correspondent services to further institutions, so the correspondent's real exposure is to a chain of downstream banks it has never assessed and whose customers it cannot see.
What the analyst sees
Payment volumes and corridors inconsistent with the respondent's own customer base, beneficiary and originator fields naming institutions that are not the respondent, and activity in currencies or jurisdictions outside the stated relationship.
Trade and documents1
Environmental Crime ProceedsRarely covered in training
In the assessment
Illegally sourced timber, minerals, fish, wildlife, waste or oil is commingled with legitimate product early in the supply chain, after which the two are indistinguishable and the proceeds enter the financial system as ordinary commodity trade.
What the analyst sees
Commodity trade finance where volumes exceed the licensed or certified capacity of the stated source, certification and permit documentation that cannot be reconciled to the shipment, and front companies with no operational footprint at origin.
Professional and market3
Mirror and Arbitrage Trading
In the assessment
Matched opposite trades in the same securities are placed through two branches by commonly controlled entities, converting currency and moving value while appearing to be ordinary market activity.
What the analyst sees
Customers whose trades consistently lose money on fees and spreads, identical baskets bought and sold across branches, and no economic rationale beyond currency conversion.
Private Placements and Subscription-as-Payment
In the assessment
Subscribing for shares in a controlled vehicle is used as the payment mechanism for goods or obligations, with the security standing in for an invoice.
What the analyst sees
Subscription monies from investors with no investment profile, funds with no genuine strategy, and redemptions issued as cards or transfers in unrelated jurisdictions.
Crowdfunding with Controlled Investors
In the assessment
A campaign is funded by pre-arranged participants, run over several weeks and wound up, with the venture's failure removing any party with an interest in scrutinising it.
What the analyst sees
Platform settlements to a venture with no product history, funding concentrated among connected contributors, and a rapid orderly wind-up.
Sanctions and state actors2
Sanctions-Evasion Ownership Restructuring
In the assessment
Ownership is diluted below control thresholds or transferred to non-designated relatives and managers after designation, leaving effective control unchanged.
What the analyst sees
Ownership changes closely following a designation date, incoming owners with no commercial history, and unchanged management across the restructuring.
Shadow Fleet and Maritime Sanctions EvasionRarely covered in training
In the assessment
Ageing tankers under opaque ownership carry sanctioned cargo, disabling or falsifying position reporting and conducting ship-to-ship transfers at sea so the cargo's origin is severed from its documentation.
What the analyst sees
Trade finance and insurance exposure to vessels with dark intervals during loading, attestations that cannot be reconciled with position history, charterers and shipowners incorporated shortly before the voyage, and repeated changes of flag and name.
Sit your own sector's case before you commit a team to it
The Securities Book carries 5 of the 9 typologies above and 39 per cent of your mark. Full debrief, no account, no card.
Start The Securities BookRun the full Capital Markets benchmark across up to 25 people for £750.
No integration · No customer data · Confidential cohort available
The weekly case
One documented case each week. One decision. The answer and the source afterwards.