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Headshot of 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.

View CV
  • 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

Testimony in Public Hearing

Online papers

Conference Presentations

Interviews

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

Related Schools & Departments

  • Education

    PhD, 1988, Sociology of Deviance, University of Edinburgh
    LLB, University of Athens
    DEA, University of Paris II

  • Contact

  • Address

    401C Churchill Hall
    360 Huntington Avenue
    Boston, MA 02115

Nikos’s Colleagues