Nasdaq Verafin’s 2026 Global Financial Crime Report estimates global illicit financial activity hit about $4.4 trillion in 2025, up roughly $1.3 trillion since 2023, and warns that AI is accelerating scam sophistication. The report calls for expanded public‑private technical collaboration and investment to counter growing, industrialised fraud and regionally concentrated trends such as rising romance and impersonation fraud in parts of Europe.

Nasdaq Verafin released its 2026 Global Financial Crime Report estimating that illicit finance reached approximately $4.4 trillion in 2025, an increase of around $1.3 trillion since 2023. The study highlights rapid growth in fraud losses across consumer, business and money‑laundering vectors and identifies a clear acceleration in the use of AI and automation by criminal actors to scale social‑engineering, impersonation and synthetic identity schemes. Verafin emphasises that threats are increasingly industrialised and regionally concentrated — for example, higher reports of romance and impersonation fraud in Germany — and urges strengthened private‑public technology partnerships, enhanced data sharing and targeted investment in anti‑fraud detection capabilities. The report recommends that banks, fintechs and regulators adopt more advanced analytics, cross‑jurisdictional cooperation and proactive asset‑recovery strategies to keep pace with criminals exploiting generative AI, deepfake tools and automated messaging channels to deceive victims and launder proceeds.