AUSTRAC Strengthens Pacific AML Capabilities Against Money Laundering and Crypto Crime

Australia’s financial intelligence agency, AUSTRAC, is strengthening financial crime capabilities across the Pacific through two major training initiatives focused on money laundering investigations, financial intelligence analysis, and cryptocurrency tracing.

Supported by Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, the programmes in Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands bring together financial intelligence practitioners and law enforcement agencies to improve their ability to identify illicit financial flows and disrupt transnational organised crime.

The initiative reflects AUSTRAC’s broader effort to strengthen regional resilience against money laundering, terrorism financing, and emerging financial crime threats.

Key takeaways for compliance professionals:

• Financial intelligence is becoming central to AML investigations.

From 3 to 6 August, AUSTRAC delivered a four-day International Financial Intelligence Tradecraft Training programme in Papua New Guinea. Analysts, police, prosecutors, and anti-corruption agencies worked through simulated money laundering cases designed to strengthen financial intelligence analysis and investigative decision-making. The programme forms part of Australia’s support to Papua New Guinea under the Australia-PNG Bilateral Security Agreement.

• Cryptocurrency tracing is emerging as a regional AML priority.

From 17 to 21 August, AUSTRAC trained representatives from 12 Pacific financial intelligence units in Honiara, Solomon Islands, on cryptocurrency tracing and intelligence writing. Participants used open-source tools to investigate illicit virtual asset activity, highlighting the need for financial intelligence teams to keep pace with increasingly technology-driven methods of moving and concealing illicit funds.

• Cross-border cooperation remains critical to disrupting criminal networks.

AUSTRAC said serious criminals do not respect borders, making cooperation between financial intelligence units, law enforcement, and other agencies essential. The Solomon Islands programme was also the first formal structured training programme AUSTRAC has delivered in the country, building on an existing regional training pathway.

The programmes highlight a broader shift in AML enforcement: financial crime investigations increasingly require both traditional financial intelligence capabilities and specialised expertise in virtual assets. For financial institutions and compliance teams operating across the region, this reinforces the importance of understanding cryptocurrency typologies, monitoring cross-border activity, and maintaining access to timely risk intelligence.

Stronger regional capability also means greater expectations for financial institutions to identify unusual activity and provide intelligence that can support investigations into organised financial crime.