The Algorithm and the Cartel: Using AI to Track Money Laundering

InSight Crime’s Venezuela Investigative Unit published a behind-the-scenes account of how it used an AI research tool to map the evolution of Tren de Aragua’s money laundering apparatus. 

The piece documents the unit’s use of Nelson, an AI tool developed by Southern Pulse that draws exclusively from a closed list of vetted sources. Nelson’s closed-source architecture was key. Standard large-language models, on the other hand, risk hallucination. What’s more, Nelson’s transparent sourcing showed exactly where each claim originated, including InSight Crime’s own prior reporting, and flagged areas for further investigation rather than filling gaps with invention.

The product? A multi-stage evolutionary model of Tren de Aragua’s financial methods, traced across Venezuela, Colombia, Chile, and Peru. The gang’s expansion through the Venezuelan migrant crisis created both the geographic footprint and the operational pressure to refine how it moves money. The AI helped the team develop a coherent throughline across a large body of existing reporting. .

“The finished result was an article that went beyond outlining money laundering cases, to show how and why Tren de Aragua has become more advanced in its methods. 

Southern Pulse has been honing Nelson to create an AI capable of providing relevant data and useful angles of analysis, using trustworthy sources to avoid the pitfalls some other AIs encounter.”

Access the original article report here: “How AI Illuminated Tren de Aragua’s Money Laundering Methods.”