Money Laundering Detection and Prevention Training Course

Duration 5 days 10 modules · 33 contact hours
Level Intermediate Certificate on completion
Who attends AML Analysts, Compliance Officers and others
Fee from USD 1,100 KSh 95,000 for Kenyan organisations
Where 52 cities + online See dates by city
Next start 16 Nov 2026 Course code SD-FFC-023

Before you join: Participants should understand basic financial products, customer onboarding and common payment processes.

Dates & prices

Two start dates a month in every city, and live online on weekdays or weekends. Fees are per participant; classroom fees include tuition, materials, lunch and refreshments, and the certificate.

Suggest a date or city

Showing the next six months. Later dates, other cities and private deliveries for your team are available on request.

Course overview

Money laundering risk is rarely identified by a single alert or document. It emerges through patterns: inconsistent customer activity, concealed beneficial ownership, unusual payment flows, trade discrepancies, rapid movement of funds, and links to higher-risk jurisdictions or counterparties. Financial institutions and regulated businesses must convert these signals into defensible decisions while meeting legal reporting duties, protecting customers, and maintaining an effective control environment.

This course examines the methods used to detect, investigate and prevent money laundering. Participants assess inherent and residual risk, build customer risk profiles, conduct customer due diligence and enhanced due diligence, interpret transaction-monitoring alerts, investigate suspicious activity, and prepare high-quality internal escalation records and suspicious activity reports. The course also addresses sanctions screening, correspondent banking, trade-based money laundering, digital assets, beneficial ownership and governance responsibilities. FATF Recommendations and risk-based AML principles provide the reference structure throughout.

Teaching combines focused instructor briefings with financial crime cases, alert-review simulations, customer-file analysis, transaction-flow mapping, group decisions and structured application planning. Participants work with realistic scenarios involving retail banking, corporate customers, payment services, trade finance and virtual assets. They leave with a practical AML control toolkit containing risk-assessment, customer-review, alert-investigation and reporting templates that can be adapted to their own policies and regulatory obligations.

The course is suited to professionals with existing exposure to compliance, operations, audit, risk, investigations or financial-crime controls who need stronger judgement in identifying suspicious activity and improving preventive controls.

What you will be able to do

  • Assess money laundering risk using a documented inherent and residual risk methodology
  • Construct customer risk ratings from ownership, geography, product and behavioural indicators
  • Conduct enhanced due diligence using source-of-funds and source-of-wealth evidence
  • Interpret transaction-monitoring alerts through typologies, customer profiles and transaction narratives
  • Investigate suspicious activity using evidence logs, transaction-flow maps and escalation criteria
  • Draft clear internal suspicious activity escalation reports supported by relevant evidence
  • Test AML controls through control design reviews, sample testing and exception analysis
  • Develop a risk-based AML improvement plan with owners, milestones and control measures

Benefits of attending

For you

  • Make better-supported decisions when reviewing unusual transactions and customer profiles
  • Write clearer escalation narratives that explain suspicion, evidence and outstanding questions
  • Recognise beneficial ownership, trade and payment patterns associated with laundering risk
  • Apply enhanced due-diligence methods to higher-risk customers and complex ownership structures
  • Contribute practical improvements to transaction monitoring and customer-review controls

For your organisation

  • Improve consistency of customer risk ratings and enhanced due-diligence decisions
  • Reduce weak alert closures through evidence-based investigation and documented rationale
  • Strengthen suspicious activity escalation quality and auditability
  • Identify control gaps in onboarding, screening, monitoring and case management
  • Create accountable AML remediation actions linked to risk, owners and deadlines

Course modules

10 modules over 5 days

Participants can identify laundering methods and assign clear prevention, detection and escalation responsibilities.

  • Placement, layering and integration mapped to observable financial crime indicators
  • FATF Recommendations translated into first-line and second-line control duties
  • Predicate offences linked to laundering routes, products and customer behaviour
  • Risk appetite statements distinguished from statutory anti-money-laundering obligations
  • Three lines model assigned for prevention, detection and escalation ownership
  • Typology intelligence evaluated for relevance, reliability and control implications

Participants can complete a documented AML risk assessment and prioritise treatment actions.

  • Inherent risk assessed across customers, products, channels, geographies and transactions
  • Residual risk calculated after evaluating control design and operating effectiveness
  • Risk scoring scales calibrated using likelihood, impact and control-performance criteria
  • Customer segments analysed for concentration, vulnerability and suspicious-activity exposure
  • Geographic risk assessed through FATF lists, sanctions and corruption indicators
  • Control gaps prioritised through risk treatment plans, owners and target dates

Participants can apply risk-based due diligence to establish customer identity, ownership and purpose.

  • Customer identification verified using reliable, independent documents and data sources
  • Beneficial ownership traced through shareholding, control rights and nominee arrangements
  • Purpose and intended nature established through expected activity evidence
  • Customer risk ratings built from customer, product, geography and channel factors
  • Ongoing due diligence triggered by material changes and unusual behaviour
  • Records retention aligned with investigation, audit and regulatory reporting needs

Participants can plan and document enhanced due diligence for higher-risk customers and transactions.

  • Enhanced due diligence triggered by risk ratings, adverse information and product exposure
  • Source of funds distinguished from source of wealth evidence
  • Politically exposed persons assessed through role, influence, family and associates
  • Adverse media evaluated for credibility, recency, relevance and corroboration
  • Complex legal entities examined through ownership charts and control documentation
  • Senior management approval documented for higher-risk relationship acceptance
  • Periodic review frequencies matched to customer risk and event triggers

Participants can review monitoring alerts using customer context, typologies and documented disposition criteria.

  • Monitoring scenarios matched to products, customer segments and laundering typologies
  • Threshold rules compared with behavioural and peer-group monitoring approaches
  • Alert triage separates data-quality exceptions from potentially suspicious activity
  • Expected activity profiles tested against transaction values, frequency and counterparties
  • Structuring patterns identified through linked transactions and cumulative amounts
  • False-positive drivers analysed through scenario tuning and data remediation
  • Alert dispositions documented with evidence, rationale and escalation decisions

Participants can investigate suspicious activity and prepare clear escalation and reporting narratives.

  • Investigation plans define allegations, scope, records, deadlines and decision points
  • Transaction-flow mapping traces originators, beneficiaries, intermediaries and related accounts
  • Evidence logs distinguish facts, assumptions, intelligence and unresolved questions
  • Link analysis identifies common addresses, devices, directors and counterparties
  • Suspicion thresholds distinguished from proof of criminal conduct requirements
  • Internal escalation narratives state behaviour, concern, evidence and recommended action
  • Suspicious activity reports drafted with chronological facts and material transaction details

Participants can assess screening alerts and integrate sanctions risk with AML customer reviews.

  • Sanctions screening separated from anti-money-laundering monitoring and reporting obligations
  • Name-matching algorithms assessed for transliteration, aliases and data-quality limitations
  • Potential matches reviewed using identifiers, ownership data and corroborating records
  • False positives resolved through documented research and approved disposition procedures
  • Sanctions ownership rules considered when assessing entities and controlled affiliates
  • Screening rescan triggers defined for list updates and customer-data changes
  • Escalation paths distinguish sanctions hits, AML suspicion and operational exceptions

Participants can recognise higher-risk laundering indicators in correspondent, trade and payment activity.

  • Correspondent banking due diligence assesses respondent ownership, controls and customer base
  • Nested relationships identified through payment patterns and intermediary bank information
  • Trade-based laundering indicators include over-invoicing, under-invoicing and phantom shipments
  • Bills of lading compared with invoices, payment terms and shipment routes
  • Payment messages reviewed for unusual intermediaries, vague narratives and routing changes
  • Rapid cross-border fund movements tested against stated business purpose
  • Wolfsberg CBDDQ evidence used to assess correspondent banking control maturity

Participants can identify laundering risks involving digital assets, fraud proceeds and newer payment channels.

  • Virtual asset service provider risks assessed through customer, wallet and transaction indicators
  • Blockchain transaction characteristics linked to mixers, chain hopping and darknet exposure
  • Fraud proceeds traced through mule accounts, rapid transfers and cash withdrawals
  • Account takeover patterns distinguished from customer-initiated unusual activity
  • Money mule recruitment indicators identified through account behaviour and payment narratives
  • Open-source intelligence assessed within policy, privacy and evidential constraints
  • Typology updates incorporated into monitoring scenarios and staff guidance

Participants can evaluate AML control performance and prepare a prioritised improvement plan.

  • AML policies translated into procedures, controls, records and accountable owners
  • Key risk indicators selected for onboarding, monitoring, investigations and reporting
  • Quality assurance sampling tests completeness, consistency, timeliness and evidential support
  • Control testing distinguishes design deficiencies from operating effectiveness failures
  • Management information reports trends, breaches, backlogs and remediation status
  • Training needs linked to role-specific control failures and typology exposure
  • Application plans assign improvements, resources, milestones and success measures

Exercises and examples are adapted to each cohort's sectors and roles.

What you take back to work

  1. AML enterprise risk-assessment template
  2. Customer risk-rating model
  3. Enhanced due-diligence checklist
  4. Transaction alert investigation workbook
  5. Suspicious activity escalation narrative template
  6. AML control improvement plan

Who should attend

  • AML Analysts — improve alert triage, investigation quality and escalation decisions
  • Compliance Officers — strengthen risk-based AML policies, oversight and reporting controls
  • Financial Crime Investigators — build evidence-led cases from transactions and customer records
  • Relationship Managers — recognise customer due-diligence gaps and unusual activity indicators
  • Internal Auditors — assess AML control design, operating effectiveness and remediation evidence
  • Operations Managers — manage first-line controls for onboarding, payments and customer reviews

Skills and tools covered

AML risk assessmentCustomer due diligenceTransaction monitoringSuspicious activity investigationSanctions screeningAML control testing

Tools and standards

FATF Recommendations, Wolfsberg Correspondent Banking Due Diligence Questionnaire, Three Lines Model, Risk-based approach

How the course runs

Training methodology

The course uses short instructor briefings to establish methods, regulatory expectations and typologies, followed by case-based analysis of customer files, payment records and transaction alerts. Participants assess risk indicators, map fund flows, test evidence quality, document investigative reasoning and discuss escalation choices in groups. Simulations address customer onboarding, alert disposition, suspicious activity reporting and control failures. Instructor feedback focuses on defensible judgement, clear documentation and practical control improvements. The final sessions convert learning into individual workplace application plans.

Requirements and prerequisites

Participants should understand basic financial products, customer onboarding and common payment processes. Experience in compliance, AML operations, risk, audit, banking operations, investigations or customer due diligence is useful. Participants should be comfortable reading account statements, transaction records and customer documentation. The course assumes familiarity with the purpose of anti-money-laundering controls, but not specialist investigative experience. No legal qualification, programming knowledge, advanced statistics or prior certification is required. Participants should bring awareness of their organisation's customer, product or transaction risks where possible.

A typical training day

08:30 – 10:30First session
10:30 – 10:45Refreshment break
10:45 – 12:30Second session
12:30 – 13:30Lunch and networking
13:30 – 15:00Third session
15:00 – 15:15Refreshment break
15:15 – 16:30Workshop and daily review

Live online deliveries follow the same structure in East Africa Time, with shorter screen blocks and longer breaks.

What the fee includes

  • Instruction by a practitioner facilitator
  • Full course workbook and materials
  • Exercise files, templates and case studies
  • Refreshments and lunch on classroom deliveries
  • Certificate of completion
  • Post-course application plan

Frequently asked questions

Participants should understand basic customer onboarding, payments or financial operations. Prior exposure to compliance, risk, audit or investigations is useful, but specialist AML investigative experience is not required.

Participants should bring a laptop if attending in person, where permitted by venue arrangements. They should also bring non-confidential examples of AML challenges, control gaps or customer-risk questions from their work.

The course is designed for AML analysts, compliance officers, investigators, relationship managers, operational managers and internal auditors. It is particularly relevant to professionals who review customers, transactions, alerts or financial-crime controls.

General fraud courses focus on preventing and investigating fraud schemes. This course concentrates on detecting and preventing the movement, concealment and integration of criminal proceeds, including the links between fraud proceeds and money laundering.

Participants can apply the risk-assessment, customer-review, alert-investigation and escalation templates to current processes. The course also helps them improve documentation quality, identify control weaknesses and support risk-based remediation.

Each training day runs from 08:30 to 16:30 and provides about 6.5 contact hours. The five days progress from AML risk and due diligence through monitoring, investigation, specialist typologies, governance and workplace application planning.

Questions about this course?

Ask about dates, fees, group bookings or running it for your team. Our training team replies by email.

Ask on WhatsApp info@skillsetdevelopment.com

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