Money Laundering Prevention with Neo4j

Challenge

The German Federal Ministry of Finance estimates that up to 100 billion euros are illegally
generated in Germany every year through money laundering. Criminals in particular use
so-called “risk industries,” such as the real estate sector or gambling industry.

Operators are subject to strict documentation and auditing requirements, and they must demonstrate
transparency in how security and detection systems are implemented in their organizations.
Affected market participants turned to compliance expert KERBEROS for an IT solution to
check and document suspected cases of money laundering and, if necessary, report them
to the authorities. Hence we started looking at a purpose-fit database that could help us
achieve this.”

Solution

Tsambikakis is also convinced of this: “With Neo4j as the database, and Structr as the
development and application platform, we have found the perfect technology mix to store
and retrieve our graph data in an ideal form. With each additional development module and
each new dataset, the ‘power’ of this tandem became ever clearer.”

Currently, the solution maps approximately 150,000 people, companies and documents, as
well as approximately 750,000 relationships between these entities. If suspicious transactions
are detected, this “case” is analyzed together with all relevant information and documents in
the graph. Instead of taking a superficial look at relationships, legal experts can also uncover
relationships only apparent at the second or third level.

The newly developed compliance management system allows documentation at the touch of
a button, e.g. during decision-making (“business deal with person X,” “dissolve contract with
Y”). Each snapshot of the graph may be saved as a PDF file and securely archived externally
via an interface – traceable documentation of information available at a certain point in time.