Public Lecture: Defending and strengthening democracy against illicit finance

Friday, February 17, 2023, 12:00 – 13:00
SSE Riga, Soros Auditorium

The founder and director of RUSI's Centre for Financial Crime and Security Studies Tom Keatinge will give a talk to students about how to defend and strengthen democracy against illicit finance. The lecture by Tom Keatinge will take place on-site and we invite everyone interested in the topic to join. 

Western democracies have, for decades now, been open to finance and investment, seeking to capitalise on the benefits they bring. Gone are the capital controls that used to raise financial borders between allies, as finance brings investment, economic growth and employment opportunities. 

But there’s another dimension to these financial flows that are willingly welcomed by Western countries, a dimension that was almost entirely ignored until the democratic world was forced to pay attention by Russia’s war of aggression on Ukraine — illicit finance.

This lecture will explore the malign influence of illicit finance on our democracies; and the way in which our openness to financial flows has the potential to undermine the structures and institutions on which our democracies are built.’ 


Tom Keatinge

About the speaker:

Tom Keatinge is the founding Director of the Centre for Financial Crime and Security Studies (CFCS) at RUSI, where his research focuses on matters at the intersection of finance and security.

​He has a Master’s in Intelligence and International Security from King’s College London. Prior to joining RUSI in 2014, he was an investment banker for 20 years at J.P. Morgan.

He is also currently a specialist adviser on illicit finance to the UK Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee ongoing enquiry.

Register for the event:

Registration is closed for this event.