Marina Aristodemou

(she/her)

Overview

A driven financial crime scholar and professional, with both academic and work experience in industry. I have completed a Law LLB (2:1) and an LLM in International Trade and Economic Law (with Distinction) at the University of the West of England. During my LLM, I have completed the LLM Dissertation on shell companies used for money laundering and terrorism financing whilst looking at advancements made to the law regarding beneficial ownership, which scored 82%.

Regarding work experience, I have completed a Level 3 Apprenticeship in Risk and Compliance with BPP University while working as a Financial Crime Risk Apprentice at Triodos Bank for 15 months. This experience has allowed me to work in first-line risk at a financial institution where I focused on PEPs, Customer Risk, Risk Management and AML/CTF policies. Additionally, I worked as an Economic Crime Analyst at Lloyd's Banking Group, where I was working between first-line and second-line risk, performing transaction monitoring and SAR investigations as well as submitting SARs to the NCA. These positions were pivotal to my understanding of financial crime law in practice and the way that certain practices or regulations need to be shifted to fit in with industry expectations. 

Academically, I have been an Early Career Researcher for the Journal of Economic Criminology as part of the Editorial Board since September 2024, where I have been peer reviewing articles. Moreover, in February 2025, I have become part of the Editorial Boards for the Journal of Financial Crime and the Journal of Money Laundering Control. These positions have allowed me to enhance my ability to critically evaluate research, stay up to date with emerging trends, and engage with leading scholars in the field.

Since January 2025, I have been a Graduate Tutor teaching Contract Law tutorials to first year Law LLB students at Cardiff University. This experience has been a teaching learning journey, having completed the Launchpad Training with the view of starting the Associate Fellowship programme in September 2025. Furthermore, I have been acting as a Step-Up Tutor for students aged 16-18 years old looking to 'step-up' at University where I have designed and delivered my own 2-hour long sessions to students.

I have also been acting as a Research Assistant for a financial crime project at UWE Bristol which aims to bring a dedicated forum of financial crime experts (academics) across the UK. This experience has been interesting to get to know more about different academics and their specialisations as well as being able to work with academics and specialists in financial crime across different institutions.

Currently I am finishing off the final chapters of my PhD thesis, which focuses on the corporate criminal liability of shell companies in the UK and the US. I am aiming to contribute to conferences and further advance financial crime research and policy reform.