Illicit Finance

Obfuscation
Illicit finance enables authoritarian regimes to covertly fund influence operations through shell companies and cryptocurrencies while obscuring their identity and evading financial oversight, allowing them to purchase political access and capture democratic institutions.
Author
Affiliation

E. Rosalie Li

Information Epidemiology Lab

Published

February 17, 2026

Obfuscation

Illicit finance enables authoritarian regimes to covertly fund influence operations through shell companies and cryptocurrencies while obscuring their identity and evading financial oversight, allowing them to purchase political access and capture democratic institutions.

FIMI Taxonomy by Information Epidemiology Lab.

Citation

BibTeX citation:
@article{li2026,
  author = {Li, E. Rosalie},
  title = {Illicit {Finance}},
  date = {2026-02-17},
  url = {https://fimi.infoepi.org/mechanisms/illicit-finance.html},
  langid = {en}
}
For attribution, please cite this work as:
Li, E. Rosalie. 2026. “Illicit Finance,” February. https://fimi.infoepi.org/mechanisms/illicit-finance.html.