Nikos Passas
Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice; Co-Director, Institute for Security and Public Policy
Professor Nikos Passas specializes in the study of corruption, illicit financial/trade flows, sanctions, informal fund transfers, remittances, terrorism, white-collar crime, financial regulation, organized crime and international crimes. He has published more than 230 articles, book chapters, reports and books in 15 languages. He is the Principal Investigator for a planning grant on Financial Network Disruptions in Illicit and Counterfeit Medicines Trade (FIND-M) funded by the National Science Foundation. His other current projects focus on institutional corruption, anti-corruption academic institutions, trade-facilitated crime, serious crimes in the context of COVID-19, criminological theory and white-collar crime, and corruption, debt and crisis in Greece.
In addition to his professorship at Northeastern University, Passas is also Co-Chair of the Steering Committee for the University of Geneva Anti-Corruption Academy (GENACA), distinguished visiting professor at Beijing Normal University, distinguished lecturer in financial integrity at Case Western Reserve Law School, chair of the Academic Council of the Anti-Corruption Academy in India. He also serves on Advisory Board of the Centre for Crime, Justice and Policing at the University of Birmingham, the Advisory Board of the Global Risk Profile in Geneva, the International Panel of Advisors at the Institute for Australia India Engagement in Brisbane and the Board of Directors of Compliance and Capacity Skills International in New York.
Passas offers training to law enforcement, intelligence and private sector officials on regulatory and financial crime subjects. He regularly serves as expert witness in court cases or public hearings and consults with law firms, financial institutions, private security and consulting companies and various organizations, including the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), OECD, OSCE, the IMF, the World Bank, other multilateral and bilateral institutions, the United Nations (ODC, Development Programme, Security Council, etc.), the Caribbean FATF, the European Union, research institutions and government agencies in all continents. His work with UNODC includes the design and initiation of the legal library of UNCAC-related national texts and the design and content of the UNCAC review mechanism software and checklist.
- Dr. Jean Mayer Global Citizenship Award, 2017, Tufts University’s Institute on Global Leadership.
- INSPIRE Fellow, Tufts University Institute of Global Leadership
TEDx Talk
- TEDx talk on Debt, Austerity and Corruption in Greece
Legal
- Legislative Guide for the Implementation of the UNCAC
- Legislative Guide for the Implementation of the UNTOC
Testimony in Public Hearing
- Passas 2016 testimony in US Congress on international trade, money laundering and terrorism finance:
Online papers
- Financial Intermediaries and anti-money laundering in cash societies (U4 research paper)
- Europe’s failed response to the refugee crisis
Conference Presentations
- ANTICORRP Roundtable: Anti-Corruption from the Greek Crisis to the Panama Papers
- Panel discussion on leadership at Northeastern University
- Harvard University: Transition to a New Economy Conference – “this capitalism wears no cloths” and “we have an economy on drugs”
Interviews
- ABC Australia interview on sports and corruption
- Russia Today – Worlds Apart interview on corruption around the globe
Books
- Financial Transnational Crime. Ashgate. (2013)
- Controlling Terrorist Financing. Springer. (forthcoming)
- Essays in Honor of Prof. C.D. Spinellis: Interdisciplinary Criminological Pathways/ (co-edited with N. Courakis et al.). Athens: Sakkoulas. 2010
- The Evolving Challenge of Identity-Related Crimes: Addressing Fraud and the Criminal Misuse and Falsification of Identity (with Christopher Ram and Demosthenis Chryssikos). Milan: International Scientific and Professional Advisory Council of the United Nations Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice Programme (ISPAC). 2008.
- The United Nations Convention against Corruption as a Way of Life. (with Dimitri Vlassis). Milan: International Scientific and Professional Advisory Council of the United Nations Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice Programme (ISPAC). 2007.
- Legislative Guide for the Implementation of the United Nations Convention against Corruption. Vienna: UN Office of Drugs and Crime. 2006. Available at: http://www.unodc.org/pdf/corruption/CoC_LegislativeGuide.pdf
- A Comparative Analysis of National Anti-Corruption Legislation and Programmes. (New York: UN Development Programme). 2006.
- Migrant Labor Remittances in South Asia (with S. Maimbo, R. Adams, R. Aggarwal). Washington, DC: The World Bank. 2005.
- Regulating Hawala and other Informal Funds Transfer Systems. (Ed.) Washington, DC: IMF. 2005.
- Informal Value Transfer Systems and Criminal Activities. Cahier 2005-1.
- Research and Documentation Centre. The Hague: Ministry of Justice, The Netherlands.
- It’s Legal, but It Ain’t Right: Harmful Social Consequences of Legal Industries. (Ed. with Neva Goodwin). Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. 2004.
- International Crimes (Ed.). Aldershot: Dartmouth. 2003.
- Legislative Guide for the Implementation of the United Nations Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime. Vienna: UN Office of Drugs and Crime; and Vancouver: International Centre for Criminal Law Reform and Criminal Justice Policy. 2003.
- Upperworld and Underworld in Cross-Border Crime. (Ed. with Petrus van Dyune and Klaus von Lampe). Nijmegen: Wolf Legal Publishers. 2002.
- Informal Value Transfer Systems and Criminal Organizations: A Study into So-called Underground Banking Networks. The Hague: Ministry of Justice, The Netherlands. 1999.
- Transnational Crime (Ed.); Aldershot: Dartmouth. 1999.
- The Future of Anomie Theory. (Ed. with Robert Agnew); Northeastern University Press. 1997.
- Organized Crime (Ed.); Aldershot: Dartmouth. 1995.
- Consortium Member and Distinguished Inaugural Professor of Collective Action, Business Ethics and Compliance, International Anti-Corruption Academy
- Distinguished visiting fellow at the TC Beirne School of Law, University of Queensland
- Corruption Program Director, Ethics and Compliance Officer Association (ECOA).
- Team Leader, European Union Commission Project
- Editor-in-chief of the international journal Crime, Law and Social Change
- Former chair of the American Society of Criminology International Division (ASC)
- Former ASC liaison to the United Nations
- Former member of the Board of Directors of the International Society of Criminology
-
Education
PhD, 1988, Sociology of Deviance, University of Edinburgh
LLB, University of Athens
DEA, University of Paris II -
Contact
617.373.4309 n.passas@northeastern.edu -
Address
401C Churchill Hall
360 Huntington Avenue
Boston, MA 02115
