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TRACIT Advisory Council

Nikos Passas

 Professor of criminology and criminal justice

Picture
Nikos Passas is Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Northeastern University. He is also Visiting Professor at Vienna University of Applied Sciences for Management & Communication’s Center for Corporate Governance & Business Ethics; Distinguished Visiting Professor at Beijing Normal University; Professor, Distinguished Practitioner in Financial Integrity and Senior Fellow of the Financial Integrity Institute at Case Western Reserve Law School, Chair of the Academic Council of the Anti-Corruption Academy in India and Member of the Board of Directors at Compliance Capacity and Skills International (CCSI). He serves on the Advisory Board of the Centre for Crime, Justice and Policing at the University of Birmingham and the Advisory Board of the Global Risk Profile in Geneva.

His law degree is from the Univ. of Athens (LL.B.), his Master’s from the University of Paris-Paris II (D.E.A.) and his Ph.D. from the University of Edinburgh Faculty of Law. He is a member of the Athens Bar (Greece). He is fluent in 6 languages and plays classical guitar.

He specializes in the study of corruption, illicit financial/trade flows, sanctions, informal fund transfers, remittances, terrorism, white-collar crime, financial regulation, organized crime and international crimes. He has published more than 220 articles, book chapters, reports and books in 14 languages.

He is a co-author of United Nations Non-Proliferation Sanctions on Iran and North Korea (2016), the author of Informal Value Transfer Systems (IVTS) and Criminal Activities (2004), Legislative Guide for the Implementation of the UN Convention against Corruption, Legislative Guide for the Implementation of the UN Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime (2003), IVTS and Criminal Organizations (1999) and editor of Transnational Financial Crimes (2013), The United Nations Convention against Corruption as a Way of Life (2007), International Crimes (2003), It’s Legal but It Ain’t Right: Harmful Social Consequences of Legal Industries 2004); Upperworld and Underworld in Cross-Border Crime (2002); Transnational Crime (1999), The Future of Anomie Theory (1997), and Organized Crime (1995). In addition, he has contributed to the United Nations Non-Proliferation Sanctions on Iran and North Korea: Practitioner's Compliance Handbook (2015), edited a volume on the Regulation of Informal remittance Systems for the IMF, co-authored a World Bank study into Migrant Labor Remittances in the South Asia Region, authored two reports to FinCEN on the trade in precious stones and metals and completed numerous studies on terrorism finance, procurement fraud, corruption asset recovery, anti-corruption authorities, as well as on governance, development and corruption international policy.

For 14 years, he served as editor-in-chief of the international journal Crime, Law and Social Change and associate editor in a number of journals. He served as Chair of the Am. Soc. of Criminology International Division and as ASC’s liaison to the United Nations. He also served on the Board of Directors of the International Society of Criminology.

Passas offers training to law enforcement, intelligence and private sector officials on regulatory and financial crime subjects. He regularly serves as expert witness in court cases or public hearings and consults with law firms, financial institutions, private security and consulting companies and various organizations, including the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), OECD, OSCE, the IMF, the World Bank, other multilateral and bilateral institutions, the United Nations (ODC, Development Programme, Security Council, etc.), the Caribbean FATF, the European Union, the US National Academy of Sciences, research institutions and government agencies in all continents. His work with UNODC includes the design and initiation of the legal library of UNCAC-related national texts and the design and content of the UNCAC review mechanism software and checklist.

He served as Team Leader for a European Union Commission project on the control of proliferation/WMD finance. His current projects focus on anti-corruption authorities, the development of performance indicators for the assessment of anti-corruption, integrity and accountability in several countries, corruption and procurement regulation, trade-facilitated financial crime, the regulation of remittance flows in cash-based societies, and on use of IT for the enhancement of due diligence conducted by financial institutions. He organized the launching and coordinated a global inter-disciplinary academic initiative on anti-corruption courses and materials, supported by Northeastern Univ., UNODC, OECD, and the International Bar Association to reach out to universities and educational institutions around the world. He has been co-Director of the Institute for Security and Public Policy at Northeastern, an INSPIRE Fellow at Tufts University’s Institute of Global Leadership, Consortium Member and Distinguished Inaugural Professor of Collective Action, Business Ethics and Compliance at the International Anti-Corruption Academy, Vienna, Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the TC Beirne School of Law, University of Queensland, Visiting Professor at the Basel Institute on Governance and Corruption Program Director at the Ethics and Compliance Officer Association (ECOA).

Below are some of his activities, papers, talks and interviews available online.
 
​TEDx Talk
  • TEDx talk on Debt, Austerity and Corruption in Greece: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4Dj0qdWLnk

​Legal
  • Legislative Guide for the Implementation of the UNCAC (all UN languages)     https://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/treaties/CAC/legislative-guide.html 
  • Legislative Guide for the Implementation of the UNTOC (all UN languages) https://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/treaties/CTOC/legislative-guide.html
 
​Testimony in Public Hearings
  • Passas 2016 testimony in US Congress on international trade, money laundering and terrorism finance:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdEe9MqEDkc  ​
​              Written statement:  http://financialservices.house.gov/uploadedfiles/hhrg-114-ba00-wstate-npassas-20160203.pdf 
  • 2014 Presentation before Greek Parliament on Anti-Corruption Strategy:  http://www.hellenicparliament.gr/Enimerosi/Vouli-Tileorasi/Tv-History/?d=12%2F04%2F2014&tv=5f49636e-6aba-4442-9a41-162d762f873a&p=f6308dc8-cfb5-49f5-b433-5f21f6f65b25#3424234

Online works
  • (2018) "Report on the debate regarding EU cash payment limitations", Journal of Financial Crime, Vol. 25 Issue: 1, pp.5-27,   https://doi.org/10.1108/JFC-06-2017-0058.  Available free here: https://www.emeraldinsight.com/doi/full/10.1108/JFC-06-2017-0058 
  • Financial Intermediaries and anti-money laundering in cash societies (U4 research paper):  http://www.u4.no/publications/financial-intermediaries-anti-money-laundering-allies-in-cash-based-societies/
  • Afghanistan Narco-Trafficking Illicit Flows (EastWest Institute report):  https://www.eastwest.ngo/sites/default/files/ideas-files/illicit-financial-flows.pdf
  • Financial Controls and Counter-Proliferation http://scholarlycommons.law.case.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1132&context=jil
  • Financial monitoring and Iran: http://thebulletin.org/how-know-if-iran-breaks-its-word-financial-monitoring8337 
  • Iran, proliferation and bank controls: https://theconversation.com/banks-will-help-insure-iran-keeps-promises-on-nukes-47899 
  • The Need for Collective action against Corruption (in Greek): http://www.protagon.gr/scripta/editorial/44341044078-44341044078 
  • Europe’s failed response to the refugee crisis. https://theconversation.com/europes-failed-response-to-refugee-crisis-risks-fraying-local-labor-markets-53348
  • “Improving Remittance Operations in Africa” - On p7 of this document:  https://www.bu.edu/bucflp/files/2015/12/CFLP_001_111215low.pdf
  • Migrant Labor Remittances in S. Asia; http://elibrary.worldbank.org/doi/pdf/10.1596/978-0-8213-6183-2
  • Trade and illicit flows (in Spanish): http://www.elmundo.es/economia/2015/07/06/559a4c5922601d5c5c8b4580.html 
  • Greece, tax evasion and lack of due process: https://medium.com/@n.passas/problems-in-the-pursuit-of-tax-evasion-in-greece-the-need-for-due-process-fairness-and-inclusive-81b89594c250#.l2ues22ld
  • Kathimerini opinion piece on tax evasion and anti-corruption (in Greek)   http://www.kathimerini.gr/837909/opinion/epikairothta/politikh/forodiafygh-kai-aytopyrovolismoi
  • ​2004: It's Legal but It Ain't Right: Harmful Social Consequences of Legal Industries (with Neva Goodwin): https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.3998/mpub.11472
  • 2004: Informal Value Transfer Systems, Money Laundering and Terrorism. Report to the National Institute of Justice (NIJ).   http://www.ncjrs.org/pdffiles1/nij/grants/208301.pdf
  • 2005: Informal Value Transfer Systems and Criminal Activities. Cahier 2005-1. Research and Documentation Centre. The Hague: Ministry of Justice, The Netherlands. http://english.wodc.nl/images/ca2005-1 Full text_tcm45-58601.pdf
  • 1999: Informal Value Transfer Systems and Criminal Organizations: A Study into So-called Underground Banking Networks. The Hague: Ministry of Justice, The Netherlands. http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1327756

Other publications are available through his uploads on www.academia.edu and on www.researchgate.net
 
Conference and panel presentations
  • ANTICORRP Roundtable: Anti-Corruption from the Greek Crisis to the Panama Papers https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9M1YHhkTtU 
  • Panel discussion on leadership at Northeastern University https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qo8N8K6VeLo
  • Inter-American Development Bank google hangout on de-risking, informal economies and money laundering (in Spanish):   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DhlpwOgab4g  
  • Security and crypto-currencies: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXPJ45GdgVE
  • Harvard University: Transition to a New Economy Conference – “this capitalism wears no cloths” and “we have an economy on drugs”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mr_SpaK7sKg
  • Delphi Economic Forum – collective action - 2016 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0PNhhM48v8 
  • Anti-Corruption Academy of India Inaugural session speech - Bangalore 2016 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZTMHdteots 
  • Transparency International conference talk on corruption and security in Athens:  http://iacconference.org/en/speakers/details/nikos_passas​​

Interviews
  • ABC Australia interview on sports and corruption (2015): http://blogs.abc.net.au/queensland/2015/08/professor-nikos-passas-sporting-corruption.html
  • Russia Today - Worlds Apart interview on corruption around the globe (2015): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iTztqUkLd8M
  • Petrobras and collective duty to fight corruption in Brazil (in Portuguese):    http://epoca.globo.com/tempo/noticia/2015/04/nikos-passas-lutar-contra-corrupcao-tem-que-ser-um-projeto-coletivo.html
  • Anti-Corruption in Ukraine (in Ukrainian):  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LtuaEUeQ7tM
  • Anti-Corruption in Ukraine with Eva Joly and Drago Kos in English https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4ZNivFKsJ0

​Online lectures
  • Money laundering and terrorist finance - 2008 https://hstalks.com/t/1046/money-laundering-and-terrorist-finance/ 

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  • Home
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    • Featured project: Global Illicit Trade Index
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  • Sectors
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    • Alcohol
    • Counterfeiting & Piracy
    • Fisheries
    • Forestry
    • Pesticides
    • Petroleum
    • Pharmaceuticals
    • Precious metals and gemstones
    • Tobacco
    • Trafficking in persons
    • Wildlife
  • Resources
    • News and Events
    • TRACIT Talking Points
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  • Contact