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Understanding Criminal Threats in fraud investigations: From Criminal Typologies to Commercial Attack Vectors, 2 July 2026
Workshop provides a unique insight into the psychology of fraud offences from Dr Nicola Harding, one of the UK’s leading criminologists and financial crime experts.
It aims to help investigators and analysts move beyond surface-level fraud categories and into a deeper understanding of who commits financial crime, why they do it, and how those motivations translate into real-world attacks on organisations.
Drawing on criminological theory and applied fraud intelligence, the session reframes financial crime as a series of human decisions shaped by pressure, opportunity, and environment, rather than isolated ‘bad acts.’ Delegates are guided to think like threat analysts: interpreting behaviour, anticipating risk, and identifying early warning signals before harm escalates.
Session One: Criminal Behaviour as a Design Problem
By the end of this session, participants will be able to:
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Explain why financial crime should be understood as a product of human pressure, opportunity, and rationalisation rather than individual moral failure.
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Describe the core principles of the Fraud Triangle, Rational Choice Theory, and Strain Theory, and explain their relevance to modern financial crime.
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Identify how organisational environments, incentives, and controls shape criminal decision-making.
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Challenge simplistic assumptions about “the fraudster” and recognise why different crimes emerge from different pressures.
The opening session introduces core criminological frameworks, including the Fraud Triangle, Rational Choice Theory, and Strain Theory, and demonstrates why they remain essential tools for understanding modern financial crime. Rather than treating offenders as a single category, participants explore how different pressures and constraints shape different criminal pathways. This session challenges the assumption that crime is driven purely by greed or technical capability, and instead shows how systems, cultures, and incentives quietly shape risk.
Session Two: Criminal Archetypes and Organisational Exposure
By the end of this session, participants will be able to:
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Distinguish between key criminal archetypes (e.g. Social Engineer, Opportunist, Recruiter, Insider) and the behavioural patterns associated with each.
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Analyse how different archetypes rationalise harm and perceive risk, reward, and effort.
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Explain why the same controls do not work equally well across different offender types.
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Identify which organisational weaknesses are most attractive to each archetype.
The second session applies theory to practice through a set of distinct criminal archetypes, including the Social Engineer, the Opportunist, the Recruiter, and the Insider. Delegates examine how each archetype thinks, what they rationalise, and how they identify and exploit weaknesses in organisations. The focus is not on labelling individuals, but on recognising patterns of behaviour, decision-making shortcuts, and predictable points of failure that translate into commercial attack vectors.
Session Three: From Typologies to Threat Mapping
By the end of this session, participants will be able to:
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Translate criminal typologies into realistic attack pathways against an organisation or product.
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Identify early behavioural, cultural, and operational signals that may indicate emerging criminal activity.
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Apply criminological insight to anticipate risk rather than respond only after loss occurs.
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Reframe fraud prevention as a form of organisational and behavioural design.
The final session shifts fully into applied analysis. Participants learn how different criminal archetypes would realistically approach a financial institution, supplier, or platform — where they would probe, what they would exploit, and which early indicators would likely appear first. Emphasis is placed on recognising pre-fraud signals, understanding cultural and operational blind spots, and reframing fraud prevention as a form of organisational design rather than reactive enforcement.
By the end of the workshop, participants leave with a shared language for criminal behaviour, a clearer understanding of how human pressure creates risk, and a practical framework for anticipating and disrupting attacks before they fully materialise.
HOW TO BOOK
Cost: £220 + VAT (GBP) per delegate per workshop (LEA and Government Agency rate). £259.50 + VAT (Industry rate), per delegate
Group bookings: We offer various discounts for group bookings depending on numbers, please contact us for details.
Student discount: We offer a 35% discount on all of our online events/workshops on condition of payment by card and a valid University email address.
Booking: Please send the delegates name(s), email address(es) and purchase order (made out to The Investigator) to booking@the-investigator.co.uk or telephone +44(0)844 660 8707 for further information.
Payment can be made by PayPal/debit/credit card. The meeting link will be sent out 7 days before the event.