The 14th Counter Fraud, Cybercrime and Forensic Accounting Conference was the biggest and best yet
The Centre for Cybercrime and Economic Crime was delighted to host the 14th Counter Fraud, Cybercrime and Forensic Accounting Conference, welcoming over 400 in-person and online delegates. We were thrilled to attract speakers from across the spectrum of organisations involved in tackling economic crime and cybercrime including university researchers, trade associations, companies specialising in audit, tax, risk management, privacy and forensic accounting, law enforcement, government departments from both the UK and overseas, e-commerce platforms, specialist technology providers, think tanks, NGOs and non-profits, with over 60 organisations represented.
Insights from leading experts
The packed programme commenced with Fran Dowling from the Home Office discussing the next steps for the UK鈥檚 Fraud Strategy, followed by an update from Daniel Sibthorpe of Crowe UK who shared his thoughts on some of the latest cybercrime cases to have hit the headlines. Craig Jones of CyPol, formerly Director of Cybercrime at INTERPOL, wrapped up the session with his expert insights into tackling cybercrime across borders. Delegates were then able to choose from parallel speaker sessions covering a diverse range of topics including fraud prevention and victimisation, diversity of online harms, banking, fraud and economic crime, economic crime and cybercrime in Africa; and cryptocurrency risks and responses.
The day concluded with Evan Williams sharing Alibaba's approach to protecting IP on ecommerce platforms, followed by Dr Michael Skidmore and Ruth Halkon from the Police Foundation discussing the findings of their research into the impact of fraud on victim health. Closing out the first day was Professor Nicholas Lord from University of Manchester, whose fascinating keynote speech addressed revitalising the intellectual endeavour in organising economic crimes.
Inaugural Marsden Cyber Security Panel
Day 2 also saw an impressive array of parallel speaker sessions to choose from, including topics such as business and fraud, misinformation and social media, romance fraud and scammers, cyber-enabled terrorism and counter-terrorism, fraudsters and enablers, anti-money laundering, cryptocurrencies and AI, cybercrime and fraud and challenges in cybersecurity. After lunch, delegates could choose from two special panel sessions with guest experts answering questions on practical approaches to preventing fraud and cybercrime. The inaugural Marsden Cyber Security Panel, launched in memory of much missed colleague Dr Simon Marsden, was chaired by Dr Vasileios Karagiannopoulos with Professor Thomas Holt of Michigan State University, Onur Korucu of GovernID and the 青瓜视频鈥檚 Lee J. Austin giving their insights into cybercrime awareness education. Dr Oleksiy Feshchenko chaired the panel on practical steps and legal frameworks relating to crimes with virtual assets, with guest speakers Dr Marius Laurinaitis of Mykolas Romeris University, Mykhailo Tiutin of AML Bot and Dr Paul Gilmour from the 青瓜视频 sharing their expertise.
Poster competition prize winner
The final plenary session saw a fascinating talk from Simon Newman of the Online Dating Discovery Association, outlining how online dating organisations can tackle romance fraud and keep their customers safe. Dr Kay Linnell OBE talked about her experiences with the Justice for Subpostmasters Alliance advocating for victims of the Post Office鈥檚 Horizon software scandal. Our final speaker was Richard Hyde who provided insights into the Social Market Foundation's research exploring the scale, impact and globally interconnected nature of fraud against consumers.
Centre for Cybercrime and Economic Crime co-directors Professor Mark Button and Dr Vasileios Karagiannopoulos then presented the prizes for the conference poster competition, with congratulations to Emerson Suter (University of Bristol) for his first prize winning poster 鈥淒igital Investigations: Strategies to Disrupt Cybercrime As a Service鈥 and runners up Dr Francesco Zola and Jon Ander Medina Vicomtech) for 鈥淎 Comprehensive Analysis of Spreading Patterns and Similarities in Low-Labelled Ransomware Families鈥, before the conference was brought to a close for another year.
We would like to thank our speakers, delegates, chairs, organising committee and student volunteers for their hard work in making the conference a success. Special thanks are due to our sponsors Crowe UK, Alibaba, AML Cert, AML Bot and Clue Software, whose contributions enable us to provide a high-quality conference at a low cost.
Save the Date for 2026!
Next year's conference is taking place on 17th and 18th June in Portsmouth, UK. Want to be kept up to date with all our conference news? Sign up to our mailing list .