Senior Complex Financial Crime Investigator

Alexander Barnes have partnered with a fast-growing global fintech to hire complex financial crime investigators as they build out and grow their financial crime team.

The first-line team in place today handles the volume, the KYC and the monitoring. What it doesn't have yet is a core of senior investigators who take the cases that don't fit a process, and that's where you come in.

This isn't an alert queue. It isn't a policy role either. You'll spend your days inside live investigations, working the ones that cross borders, involve multiple accounts and individuals, touch high-risk jurisdictions or carry serious value.

If your strength is clearing volume, this probably isn't the one. If your strength is the handful of cases that land on your desk because nobody else can resolve them, the ones with layered networks, multiple individuals and accounts, cross-border or high-risk jurisdictions and serious value, where you're the last point of escalation and the answer isn't in any playbook, keep reading.

What you'll do:

• Own complex and escalated investigations end to end: layered, multi-entity, cross-border and high-value cases that first-line analysts can't close through a standard process




• Map networks across accounts, entities and counterparties to uncover mule activity, organised crime structures, sanctions evasion and other criminal behaviour that doesn't announce itself




• Write and file SARs and make the hard calls (including consent and DAML decisions) where the policy alone doesn't give you the answer




• Be the person others come to when a case goes beyond standard triage, giving direction and not just reviewing someone else's work




• Turn what you find into better detection rules, training and escalation routes, so the same case doesn't slip through twice




• Help shape how AI tools and vendors are used in investigations, from testing and feedback through to holding outsourced teams to the standard




• Take your most complex findings to senior stakeholders and make them clear and decision-ready

What you'll bring

• Around 4-9 years of financial crime experience, with a track record of complex cases you personally owned, not ones your team worked on




• Hands-on SAR experience: reports you have written and filed yourself, including on high-risk, high-scrutiny cases




• Strong transaction monitoring and KYC investigation experience, plus depth in at least one or two complex typologies (mule networks, organised crime, trade-based laundering, sanctions evasion or similar)




• A background in fintech, payments or retail banking




• Experience with AI in investigations or workflow (testing, design or feedback) and with vendor or outsourced team oversight




• Sound working knowledge of UK and/or EU AML regulation, including sanctions and PEP frameworks




• The confidence to work without a precedent and to be the final word for your peers on difficult cases




• CAMS, ICA or an equivalent qualification




• Nice to have: SOP or QA work that you have fed back into monitoring, screening or case handling

Team leads and managers are welcome, as long as you're still investigating every day. This is a hands-on role at every level.

Why apply?

• You'll help build it. You'd be one of the first senior investigators in a function being built from the ground up, with real say in how complex casework is run




• The work is the work. Complex, cross-border, high-value cases are the core of the role, not a side project, and you'll investigate every day at any level




• Scale is coming.




• Room to grow. The structure leaves space for team lead and manager roles later, and for those who want it, a route into leading a team without leaving the investigations behind




• Real influence. You'll work directly with senior financial crime leaders, and what you find will shape detection, controls and how AI and vendors are used across the function




• Strong rewards and competitive salary & package.

If you've been waiting for a role where the hardest cases are yours and the team is built around people like you, this is it.