CSH Talk by Michael Dewar “Two Sides of the Same Crime”

Michael Dewar (Vice President of Data Science, Crypto, and Security Innovation at Mastercard, London) will present a talk on Friday, October 6th, 2023, from 3 – 4 PM in Room 201.

Title: Two Sides of the Same Crime

Abstract: 2-5% of global GDP – some 2-5 Trillion dollars – is estimated to be associated with economic crime. Less than 1% of this is seized, while the total cost of compliance is around $274 Billion dollars. So it costs us $274B to save a similar amount. We’re not winning. This talk considers some of the challenges around detecting and preventing fraud and money laundering and questions whether or not our theories of change are up to the task.

Bio: Dr Michael Dewar is a Vice President of Data Science in the Crypto and Security Innovation team within Cyber & Intelligence at Mastercard. Dr Dewar has a PhD in complex systems from the University of Sheffield in the UK, held postdoctoral positions at Edinburgh and Columbia Universities, and has published widely in the fields of modelling and machine learning.

Before joining Mastercard, Dr Dewar has held data scientist positions at the social media company bit.ly, and in the R&D Lab at the New York Times. During his time at Mastercard, Dr Dewar and his team have been responsible for designing, building and operating live financial crime products used by the top UK banks, including the Trace Money Mules, Consumer Fraud Risk and Corporate Fraud Risk products.