Periodic Reporting for period 1 - FALCON (Fight Against Large-scale Corruption and Organised Crime Networks)
Periodo di rendicontazione: 2023-09-01 al 2025-02-28
Corruption remains a global challenge, with major obstacles hampering effective prevention and enforcement. Key issues include: poorly informed policy decisions and slow, costly investigations; the complex, hidden nature of corruption and its ties to organized crime and money laundering; limited ability to measure corruption trends and assess risks; and the need for advanced, trustworthy technological tools for data-driven analysis.
FALCON addresses these gaps through a comprehensive, data-driven, multi-actor framework for corruption intelligence. It focuses on building actionable indicators and deploying advanced analytics and AI-powered tools to support the entire lifecycle of corruption detection and response. FALCON operates in four key domains: corruption at border crossings, sanction circumvention, public procurement fraud, and conflicts of interest involving politically exposed persons. It involves stakeholders from 6 European countries, including law enforcement, tech providers, academia, and civil society.
FALCON Objectives:
SO1: Analysis of the Corruption Landscape – Analyze the forms, modi operandi, international dimension, impacts and interlinks of corruption, defining and producing improved and actionable indicators, following an interdisciplinary, evidence-based approach
SO2: Data Acquisition and Analytics Tools – Provide technological tools that can underpin the acquisition and analysis of corruption data of various types and from various sources
SO3: Risk Assessment, Investigation and Decision Support Tools – Provide tools and applications tailored to the needs of end-users
SO4: Capacity Building, Framework Co-design and Pilots Implementation – Adopting a multi-actor and iterative approach, co-design the FALCON framework, evaluate project results through pilots, and improve anti-corruption capacity through an innovative training package
SO5: Security, Privacy, Ethics and Legal Aspects and Trustworthy AI – Ensure that security, privacy, eth-ics and legal aspects of the project are continuously monitored and sufficiently addressed, placing emphasis on guaranteeing the robustness and trustworthiness of the proposed AI techniques and tools
SO6: Impact and Policy – Issue policy recommendations based on the project’s results and findings and carry out multi-faceted communication, dissemination and exploitation activities to maximize its impact
FALCON contributes to the Expected Outcomes (EOs) of the FCT-01-05 topic.
EO1: Delivers comprehensive corruption intelligence, including trends, impacts, and cross-border aspects
EO2: Improved risk analysis on new fields offered by the COVID-19 pandemic
EO3: Equips authorities with validated tools and training for effective anti-corruption enforcement
EO4: Enhances cross-border cooperation and knowledge exchange between law enforcement agencies
EO5: Strengthens policymaking with actionable, evidence-based recommendations
Overall FALCON provides completeness, accuracy, and actionability in corruption intelligence. The tools are designed with trustworthiness and explainability in mind, enabling informed decision-making, enhanced law enforcement capabilities, and stronger institutional resilience as well as cross-border collaboration.
FALCON addresses these gaps through a comprehensive, data-driven, multi-actor framework for corruption intelligence. It focuses on building actionable indicators and deploying advanced analytics and AI-powered tools to support the entire lifecycle of corruption detection and response. FALCON operates in four key domains: corruption at border crossings, sanction circumvention, public procurement fraud, and conflicts of interest involving politically exposed persons. It involves stakeholders from 6 European countries, including law enforcement, tech providers, academia, and civil society.
FALCON Objectives:
SO1: Analysis of the Corruption Landscape – Analyze the forms, modi operandi, international dimension, impacts and interlinks of corruption, defining and producing improved and actionable indicators, following an interdisciplinary, evidence-based approach
SO2: Data Acquisition and Analytics Tools – Provide technological tools that can underpin the acquisition and analysis of corruption data of various types and from various sources
SO3: Risk Assessment, Investigation and Decision Support Tools – Provide tools and applications tailored to the needs of end-users
SO4: Capacity Building, Framework Co-design and Pilots Implementation – Adopting a multi-actor and iterative approach, co-design the FALCON framework, evaluate project results through pilots, and improve anti-corruption capacity through an innovative training package
SO5: Security, Privacy, Ethics and Legal Aspects and Trustworthy AI – Ensure that security, privacy, eth-ics and legal aspects of the project are continuously monitored and sufficiently addressed, placing emphasis on guaranteeing the robustness and trustworthiness of the proposed AI techniques and tools
SO6: Impact and Policy – Issue policy recommendations based on the project’s results and findings and carry out multi-faceted communication, dissemination and exploitation activities to maximize its impact
FALCON contributes to the Expected Outcomes (EOs) of the FCT-01-05 topic.
EO1: Delivers comprehensive corruption intelligence, including trends, impacts, and cross-border aspects
EO2: Improved risk analysis on new fields offered by the COVID-19 pandemic
EO3: Equips authorities with validated tools and training for effective anti-corruption enforcement
EO4: Enhances cross-border cooperation and knowledge exchange between law enforcement agencies
EO5: Strengthens policymaking with actionable, evidence-based recommendations
Overall FALCON provides completeness, accuracy, and actionability in corruption intelligence. The tools are designed with trustworthiness and explainability in mind, enabling informed decision-making, enhanced law enforcement capabilities, and stronger institutional resilience as well as cross-border collaboration.
FALCON has successfully met all milestones and deliverables so far, establishing a strong foundation for its anti-corruption framework. WP2 identified key corruption domains—public procurement, Politically Exposed Persons (PEPs), border corruption, and sanctions circumvention—through 63 case studies and developed a comprehensive set of risk indicators. WP3 co-designed the technical architecture based on user needs, delivering the first prototype and ensuring secure data management and trustworthy AI principles. WP4 developed the Common Representational Model (CRM) as an ontology and built tools for data ingestion, analysis, anomaly detection, and trend monitoring, integrated into the FALCON Knowledge Base. WP5 released the ACRA tool for risk assessment and a predictive analytics module to detect corruption risks, supported by a user-friendly dashboard and backend infrastructure. WP6 launched successful pilot activities, training over 280 participants and gathering extensive feedback via hands-on tool testing and stakeholder engagement. All tools were integrated into the first FALCON pilot and presented to LEAs and SSH partners, with no deviations from the original plan anticipated.
Some key results worth mentioning are:
4 corruption domains covered; 5 intelligence dimensions mapped
more than 35 actors directly engaged; 285 individuals already trained
4 Data Acquisition and Analytics tools and 5 Risk Assessment tools deployed
First pilot completed
1 Policy Brief already published
Some key results worth mentioning are:
4 corruption domains covered; 5 intelligence dimensions mapped
more than 35 actors directly engaged; 285 individuals already trained
4 Data Acquisition and Analytics tools and 5 Risk Assessment tools deployed
First pilot completed
1 Policy Brief already published
From the outset, FALCON has aimed to go beyond the state of the art by addressing corruption through a multidisciplinary, technology-driven approach. It explores facilitators, schemes, and interlinks between corruption and other crimes, offering a comprehensive and horizontal perspective. Novel corruption indicators are generated by integrating diverse datasets, while impact assessments focus on both economic and social costs using bottom-up methods.
FALCON also tracks global corruption trends and financial flows, examines the international policy landscape, and treats corruption as a dynamic, collective issue. Technological innovation is central: FALCON enables semantic information fusion via a Common Representational Model (CRM), supports crypto asset monitoring with advanced Graph ML techniques, and enhances visual vehicle recognition for border corruption analysis.
Key results include:
63 analyzed corruption cases that informed the first FALCON Policy Brief
37 risk indicators developed and validated
8 prototype tools built and demonstrated
1200+ ontology entities integrated in the FALCON Knowledge Base
5 anti-corruption training sessions held with over 280 participants
2 webinars delivered on Trustworthy AI and AI Security
These achievements contribute to early warning, intelligent risk assessment, and enhanced support for corruption investigations across the EU and beyond.
FALCON also tracks global corruption trends and financial flows, examines the international policy landscape, and treats corruption as a dynamic, collective issue. Technological innovation is central: FALCON enables semantic information fusion via a Common Representational Model (CRM), supports crypto asset monitoring with advanced Graph ML techniques, and enhances visual vehicle recognition for border corruption analysis.
Key results include:
63 analyzed corruption cases that informed the first FALCON Policy Brief
37 risk indicators developed and validated
8 prototype tools built and demonstrated
1200+ ontology entities integrated in the FALCON Knowledge Base
5 anti-corruption training sessions held with over 280 participants
2 webinars delivered on Trustworthy AI and AI Security
These achievements contribute to early warning, intelligent risk assessment, and enhanced support for corruption investigations across the EU and beyond.