21 Feb 2018
IFFs: The Economy of Illicit Trade in West Africa
Development Dialogue, Gold Watch, Protecting Politics
Transnational Crime Director, Vigilance Group
Rob McCusker is a Visiting Professor in Transnational Crime at Universiti Teknologi MARA in Malaysia and was the former Director of the Centre for Fraud and Financial Crime and Reader in Fraud and Financial Crime within the School of Social Sciences, Business and Law at Teesside University and the former Transnational Crime Analyst for the Australian Institute of Criminology, Australia’s leading statutorily created crime research body which falls within the Minister for Justice’s portfolio. Within Australia, Rob worked with a number of agencies including the Australian Crime Commission, the Australian Federal Police, the Australian High Tech Crime Centre and the Office of National Assessments on a range of transnational crime issues. Outside of Australia, Rob has worked with the Specialist Crime Directorate of the Metropolitan Police, the Council of Europe, APEC, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the US State Department. Overall, Rob has worked with a range of Government, law enforcement, intelligence and business organisations in a number of jurisdictions including the UK, USA, Thailand, New Zealand, the Pacific Islands, Australia, New Zealand, Europe, Malaysia, Hong Kong and Indonesia. Rob was a designated ‘expert’ in economic crime and money laundering at the 2005, 2010 and 2015 United Nations Congresses on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice. In relation to anti-money laundering and counter terrorist finance, Rob was seconded for two years to the Attorney-General’s Department as an adviser on the development and implementation of its Anti-Money Laundering and Counter Terrorist Financing Act 2006 and formed part of the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorist Financing Project Team involved in a four year research programme for AUSTRAC (Australia’s Financial Intelligence Unit) on best practice in anti-money laundering efforts globally. He was also a member of the Australian Government Inter -Departmental Committee on the establishment, role and operation of the Anti-Money Laundering Assessment Team which supports the creation and operation of Financial Intelligence Units in the Pacific Islands. More recently, he was consultant to, and contributing author for, the European Commission for its ‘Study for an Impact Assessment for a Proposal for a Directive to on the Criminalisation of Money Laundering’. In relation to corruption, Rob was until recently the Research and Evaluation Consultant for the UN Development Programme in relation to a global assessment of the impact of the UN Convention against Corruption. He undertook a review for the Australian Attorney-General’s Department on anti-corruption strategies in the Asia-Pacific region and was a member of Panel Two (‘The Foreign Bribery Offence and Principles of Prosecution –Australian Public Authorities’) in connection with an OECD on-site evaluation of the Australian Government’s compliance with the OECD Foreign Bribery Convention. Rob is a Member of the Advisory Board of the Rutgers Institute on Anti- Corruption Studies, Rutgers University, New York, and has also been engaged by the International Centre for Parliamentary Studies in London to advise (in relation to financial regulation as part of an anti-corruption toolkit) delegates from developed and developing nations on developing and enhancing their countries’ anti-corruption strategies. Countries advised thus far include Gambia, Somalia, Bulgaria, Nigeria, Malaysia, Mexico, Singapore, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Serbia, Switzerland and the United Arab Emirates.
Books/Book Chapters
Journal Articles
Confidential Publications