Date: 2/13/26 ⏱️Duration: 60 minutes
📊Expertise Level: Intermediate
Description:Human trafficking hides inside everyday financial activity, often blending in with legitimate transactions unless professionals know exactly what signals to look for. This session gives teams a clear, practical roadmap for recognizing the foundational patterns behind trafficking and illicit massage businesses (IMBs). Instead of relying on intuition or generic red-flag lists, participants will learn structured ways to read transaction flows, identify patterns that don’t fit the customer’s expected behavior, and link those observations to potential indicators of exploitation.
Using real investigative examples and pattern-based walkthroughs, the course breaks down what IMB-related activity actually looks like in financial data—from repetitive payments and unusual cash behavior to account structuring and funneling practices. Attendees will strengthen their ability to detect these activities earlier, escalate concerns appropriately, and support cases with strong, defensible documentation.
Who This Is Designed For
AML analysts, transaction monitoring teams, investigators, fraud personnel, and compliance professionals who need a foundational but practical introduction to identifying human trafficking and IMB-related activity through financial intelligence.
Agenda
Understanding Trafficking’s Financial Signals:: Identify the recurring financial behaviors and transaction flows that underpin human trafficking operations.
IMB Indicators & Business Model Patterns: Break down how IMBs generate revenue, manage expenses, move funds, and exploit customer accounts.
Core Red Flags in Transaction Monitoring: Recognize the key transaction combinations that distinguish trafficking from other high-risk activity.
Analyzing Customer Profiles & Account Behavior: Evaluate customer activity against expected patterns to identify unusual movement, structuring, or layering behavior.
Connecting Data Points & Preparing Escalations: Strengthen case files through clear explanations, pattern recognition, and consistent documentation.
What You’ll Learn
Typology Foundations: Break down the operational models behind labor trafficking, IMBs, forced criminality, and coercive schemes.
Labor Trafficking Financial Profiles: Examine wage theft, payroll manipulation, employment-agency funnels, and sponsor-controlled accounts.
IMB & Commercial Sex Operation Structures: Understand the financial flows, ownership concealment, and payment practices specific to IMBs and sex-based exploitation.
Funnel Accounts & Money Movement Strategies: Identify transaction patterns that suggest controlled movement of funds, third-party access, and layered transfers.
Integrating Typologies into Monitoring & SAR Processes: Enhance detection logic, escalation pathways, and investigation consistency using typology-informed frameworks.
By the end of this course, you will be able to
Recognize key financial behaviors associated with trafficking and IMB operations.
Evaluate customer activity patterns using structured analysis techniques.
Connect fragmented financial signals into clearer indicators of exploitation.
Strengthen escalations and SAR narratives with precise investigative insights.
Improve alert handling and reduce missed trafficking-related activity.
Note: This program meets the eligibility criteria for continuing education under ACFCS and is eligible for 1 credit.