Inside Cyber-Enabled Proliferation - How Finance Powers the Threat

This presentation examines how proliferation financing has evolved beyond traditional sanctions frameworks into a complex, cyber-enabled threat where finance, technology, and global trade intersect.
 
Using case studies, it explores how state-sponsored actors exploit cyber operations, virtual assets, and international financial systems to generate and move funds in support of weapons of mass destruction programmes.
 
It highlights the methods used to bypass sanctions, including crypto-enabled theft, remote IT worker schemes, and multi-layered procurement networks involving front companies and dual-use goods.
 
The presentation emphasises the critical role of financial institutions in detecting these risks, advocating for a shift from reactive compliance to proactive, intelligence-led approaches in line with FATF effectiveness standards.

Time: Registration and welcome coffee and cakes at 09:00
Session: 9:30am to 11:00 
Dates: 11th June 2026 
Location: Atlas Rooms, Sunborn
Price: £25 for GACO members/£50 non-GACO members

Speaker

Edgar Lopez is the former Director of the Gibraltar Financial Intelligence Unit. He brings extensive experience in the collection, analysis and dissemination of financial intelligence. He has led operational and strategic initiatives to strengthen national and international responses to complex financial crime threats, with a particular focus on the convergence between finance, sanctions and new technologies.

He has also led a project under the Small States and Territories Working Group to develop guidance aimed at enhancing small jurisdictions’ understanding of proliferation financing risks and strengthening risk-based responses.

Edgar holds a Master’s degree in International Affairs with Cybersecurity, at King’s College London, with research focused on the use of the cyber domain by state actors to generate revenue to fund nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programmes.

He is an Associate Fellow at Royal United Services Institute, where his work focuses on proliferation financing risks, typologies and policy responses. He is recognised for his expertise in counter proliferation financing, contributing to international capacity building and the development of risk-based frameworks and national risk assessments aligned with FATF standards.