146. Diana Bociga on the network architecture of anti-money laundering

About this episode

Diana Bociga discusses her research on the effectiveness of the UK's anti-money laundering system and its organizational network.

The UK's anti-money laundering system involves 88 organizations across policy, supervision, and enforcement, but does this complex network actually work? In this episode, host Robert Barrington speaks with Diana Bociga about her research using social network analysis to map how these organizations collaborate. Diana's findings reveal a system operating across two disconnected dimensions, strategic policy-making and tactical intelligence-sharing, where engagement in one often doesn't translate to the other. While public sector bodies serve as crucial brokers connecting different parts of the network, some brokerage roles are duplicated while others are missing entirely. The conversation explores whether the solution to improving effectiveness lies in adding more connections or fundamentally rethinking how the network is organized. Diana Bociga, Elisa Bellotti, Nicholas Lord, The Network Architecture of Anti-money Laundering: Strategic and Tactical (Dis)Connections in the UK’s Policy, Supervision, and Enforcement Landscape, The British Journal of Criminology, 2025. https://academic.oup.com/bjc/advance-article/doi/10.1093/bjc/azaf101/8368980

People in this episode

Guest: Diana Bociga

Topics covered

• anti-money laundering
• network analysis
• public policy
• law enforcement
• organizational collaboration

Keywords

• social network analysis
• policy-making
• intelligence-sharing
• broker roles
• system effectiveness

Mentioned in this episode

Books & works: The Network Architecture of Anti-money Laundering: Strategic and Tactical (Dis)Connections in the UK’s Policy, Supervision, and Enforcement Landscape

Places: UK

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