What Is Human Crime

99.8% of Illicit Flows
Go Undetected

Trafficking, scams, child exploitation, and elder abuse all leave financial clues. The Knoble connects the professionals who can find them.

Human Crime Crime where a person is the target — their body, trust, savings, or dignity
$346.7B
Human trafficking
annual industry
$1.03T
Global scam losses
in 2024
36.2M
Reports of CSAM
in 2023
$61.5B
Elder exploitation
losses in 2022
What's Moving Through Your Institution
Four Crimes, One Money Trail

Every one of these crimes generates transactions, patterns, and anomalies that your institution can detect — if you know what to look for.

Human Trafficking

Look for: high-volume cash deposits at odd hours, multiple accounts at one address, prepaid card patterns consistent with labor or sex trafficking operations.

$346.7B annual industry
Scams

Look for: sudden large wire transfers from dormant accounts, crypto conversions inconsistent with profile, patterns matching romance or investment scam playbooks.

$1.03T global losses in 2024
Child Sexual Exploitation

Look for: recurring small payments to high-risk platforms, peer-to-peer transfers involving minors, transaction patterns flagged by NCMEC and ICMEC typologies.

36.2M CSAM reports in 2023
Elder Financial Exploitation

Look for: new signers or POA changes, rapid account depletion, unusual ATM patterns, gift card purchases inconsistent with customer history.

$61.5B losses in 2022
Human Crime
The Cycle
01
Scam victims lose savings
Pig butchering and romance scam operations — many staffed by trafficking victims — extract billions worldwide.
02
Profits fund trafficking operations
Stolen funds flow to organized crime groups who traffic more people to staff more scam centers.
03
Same networks exploit elders and children
These organizations use identical infrastructure for elder exploitation, sextortion, and abuse material.
04
The money always moves through banks
Every link requires the financial system. Institutions hold the greatest leverage to break this cycle.
This is why siloed detection fails. Fighting one crime without monitoring the others means missing the full network.
What This Means for You
Siloed Detection Doesn't Work

Most institutions fight these crimes in separate teams with separate tools. But the criminals operate as one network. A SAR filed for a romance scam may trace back to the same organization trafficking people across borders.

Cross-crime detection guides

Typologies that connect trafficking indicators to scam patterns, CSE to elder abuse — so nothing falls through the cracks.

Intelligence sharing across institutions

What one bank detects strengthens every bank's defenses through Project Umbra and working groups.

SAR addendums with human crime context

Templates that help your team file SARs connecting the dots law enforcement needs to act.

The Knoble Network
Awaken, Equip, Mobilize

The Knoble gives financial crime professionals the tools, intelligence, and community to fight human crime — inside their institutions and across the industry.

Detection Guides & Typologies

Practical resources for identifying human crime in transaction data — built by investigators, for investigators.

Working Groups & Roundtables

Collaborate across institutions on emerging threats, shared intelligence, and prevention strategies.

Learning Paths & Events

Training, Third Thursday Talks, and conferences that keep you current on human crime detection.

Project Umbra

Cross-institutional intelligence mapping the financial footprints of trafficking and scam operations.

Major Event Monitoring

Proactive detection support around the Super Bowl, World Cup, and other events where trafficking surges.

HCS Certification

A six-month leadership credential that sets a new standard for the financial crime profession.

Take Action
Take the Next Step

When professionals unite across industries, real change happens.

Join the Network

Access working groups, detection guides, learning paths, events, and a global community of financial crime professionals fighting human crime.

Join the Fight
Corporate Membership

Align your organization with the fight against human crime. Intelligence sharing, strategic partnerships, and industry leadership positioning.

Learn More