DARPA-SN-25-25.pdf

Special Notice Information Innovation Office

Anticipatory and Adaptive Anti-Money Laundering (A3ML) Proposers Day

DARPA-SN-25-25

January 23, 2025

Opportunity Anticipatory and Adaptive Anti-Money Laundering (A3ML) Proposers Day

Event Proposers Day

Event Date/Time February 20, 2025 Unclassified Session: 9:00 AM Eastern Time (ET) Classified Session: 2:00 PM ET

Event Physical Location DARPA Conference Center 675 North Randolph St. Suite 200 Arlington, VA 22203

Fee to Attend There is NO fee to attend

Who can Attend This event is open to potential proposers only; not open to the public.

Registration Website https://creative.spa.com/darpa/i2o/a3ml/pd/

Registration Deadline February 10, 2025 at 5:00 PM ET

Non-U.S. Registration forms Deadline

February 10, 2025 at 5:00 PM ET

Administrative POC A3ML@darpa.mil

DARPA Program Manager David Dewhurst

PROPOSERS DAY

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Information Innovation Office (I2O) is sponsoring a Proposers Day in support of the anticipated Anticipatory and Adaptive Anti-Money Laundering (A3ML) Program Solicitation. The purpose of this event is to provide information on the A3ML technical goals and challenges, address questions from potential proposers, and provide an opportunity for potential proposers to consider how their research may align with the A3ML program objectives. Attendance is voluntary and is not required to propose to the A3ML Program Solicitation.

PROGRAM BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES

A3ML seeks to develop technologies that prevent U.S. adversaries from financing their aggression and illegal activities by making it prohibitively expensive to launder value through the global financial system.

To achieve this strategic objective, the A3ML program will develop algorithms to extract illicit financial flow tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTP) from heterogeneous transaction data and represent TTPs in a generic sharable format, integrate developed algorithms into a prototype system, and rapidly transition the prototype system to operational users.

U.S. adversaries depend on the global financial system and payments networks to finance the development of weapons of mass destruction, back violent extremist organizations, and produce illicit drugs that kill Americans. For example, the White House has stated that roughly half of the North Korean nuclear program is funded through laundering of cryptocurrency into fiat currency used to procure critical program components.1 Likewise, transnational criminal organizations, who have long been at the forefront of money laundering innovation, now partner with sophisticated People’s Republic of China (PRC)-based organizations and underground banking groups to finance the acquisition of fentanyl and other illicit drugs’ chemical precursors in exchange for surreptitiously moving capital out of the PRC, according to open-source reporting.2

The A3ML program seeks to revolutionize anti-money laundering (AML) in the U.S. by replacing current manual, reactive, expensive, and coercive AML practices with agile, algorithmic methods that align incentives and reduce costs across the U.S. Government (USG) and the private sector. The A3ML program will achieve this outcome by developing algorithms and software that apply graph search techniques to distributed financial transaction records, referencing high-level models of money laundering TTPs to extract instances of illicit financial transactions from data. To adapt to changing adversary behavior, A3ML algorithms will also infer new TTPs from partially labeled transactions and metadata. By shifting the USG AML paradigm from manually searching for and reporting specific instances of illicit financial behavior to sharing generic patterns of illicit financial behavior, A3ML will increase the utility of reporting suspected illicit financial behavior for both the USG and private sector (e.g., as required by the Bank Secrecy Act) and decrease compliance costs incurred by U.S. financial institutions.

The overarching technical objectives of the A3ML program will include: (a) developing algorithms for extracting money laundering TTPs from financial transaction data; (b) developing algorithms for inferring new TTPs from partially labeled transaction data; (c) integrating TTP extraction and inference algorithms into a prototype system for automatic detection of illicit financial behavior; and (d) constructing novel, hypothetical money laundering TTPs to test the effectiveness of TTP extraction and inference algorithms in novel scenarios. DARPA welcomes diverse technical approaches to address A3ML problems.

Advances in exact and approximate graph search, subgraph matching algorithms, graph convolutional and transformer networks, inverse planning, federated learning, game theory, and probabilistic modeling could help to achieve A3ML objectives, but this list of approaches is in no way prescriptive and alternative approaches are welcomed.

If released, the A3ML Program Solicitation will be made available at https://sam.gov.

REGISTRATION INFORMATION

The A3ML Proposers Day will be held on February 20, 2025, from 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM in-person at the DARPA Conference Center, 675 North Randolph St., Suite 200, Arlington, VA 22203. The event will consist of an unclassified session from 9:00 AM to 12:00 PM and a classified session from 2:00 PM to 5:00 PM. Persons who do not hold an active security clearance are eligible to attend the unclassified session. Only U.S. citizens who hold an active TS/SCI (SI, TK, G, and HCS-Accesses) security clearance are eligible to attend the classified session.

No more than three representatives per organization unit, and five people per overall organization, may attend this Proposers Day. Registrants are strongly encouraged to coordinate attendance internally within their organizations prior to registration. There will be two separate registration websites, one for the unclassified session and the other for the classified session.

1 https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/10/politics/north-korean-missile-program-cyberattacks/index.html 2 https://www.nbcnews.com/investigations/marijuana-mexican-cartels-stunning-rise-chinese-money-launderers-rcna158030 https://sam.gov/ https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/10/politics/north-korean-missile-program-cyberattacks/index.html https://www.nbcnews.com/investigations/marijuana-mexican-cartels-stunning-rise-chinese-money-launderers-rcna158030

All attendees interested in the classified session must attend the unclassified session; thus, absence at the unclassified session will disqualify your admittance into the classified session.

Registration must be completed no later than February 10, 2025, at 5:00 PM. Registration is on a first-come, first-served basis with a limit of 136 in-person participants at the unclassified session and 50 in-person participants at the classified session. Any U.S. citizen seeking to attend the Proposers Day in-person will be required to present a valid, Government-issued photo identification at the registration table prior to admittance into the event.

Late in-person registrations may be admitted after all pre-registered attendees are admitted, and only if room capacity allows. Please note, check-in begins at 8:00 AM; late in-person registration requires significant coordination and may not be complete in time to gain physical entrance into the Proposers Day event.

REGISTRATION FOR CLEARED U.S. PERSONNEL

Appropriate clearances must be submitted and received no later than February 10, 2025, at 5:00 PM ET. Clearances must be passed by one or more of the following processes:

• Sent via DISS (preferred method) to SMO Code DDAAUS4 for Collateral or DDAAUS2 for SCI. Attention: David Dewhurst/A3ML Special Notice Proposers Day

• Faxed – 703-528-3655 (unclassified) for Collateral or 703-812-1995 (secure) for SCI

REGISTRATION FOR NON-U.S. CITIZENS

Any non-U.S. citizen must complete and submit one of the following:

• DARPA Form 60; or

• Foreign government personnel must submit an Official Visit Request completed by their respective Embassy based in Washington, DC.

All non-U.S. forms must be submitted no later than February 10, 2025, at 5:00 PM. Form 60 submission instructions are provided on the registration website and in the registration confirmation email. Foreign government personnel should contact their respective Embassy staff for assistance in submitting the Official Visit Request. All non-U.S. personnel must present a valid passport or Permanent Resident Card.

EVENT FORMAT

The A3ML Proposers Day will include overview presentations by the DARPA Program Manager, David Dewhurst, and DARPA support offices, such as the Contracts Management Office and Security and Intelligence Directorate. The event will conclude with a Question & Answer (Q&A) session.

Following the Proposers Day event, DARPA anticipates posting additional information regarding the A3ML program (e.g., DARPA materials presented at the Proposers Day and a Q&A document) to https://www.darpa.mil/research/programs/a3ml-anticipatory-adaptive.

https://www.darpa.mil/research/programs/a3ml-anticipatory-adaptive

ATTENDEE TEAMING

To assist those wanting to establish collaborative teaming efforts and business relationships, potential proposers may indicate on the registration website that they authorize their contact information to be shared among meeting participants. For persons or organizations new to A3ML, this may be of use in connecting with potential partners. The A3ML team anticipates potential proposers will have the opportunity to conduct informal teaming discussions in-person and virtually during and after the event.

The A3ML team may provide informal communication channels to assist in teaming discussions during and after the event. Potential proposers are strongly encouraged not to rely solely on this event or potential government communication channels to form teaming relationships.

CLASSIFIED CAPABILITIES STATEMENT

Interested parties in the A3ML program, specifically the classified realm, and those who have either a) personnel currently holding security clearances and facilities cleared to receive, store, and process information at multiple levels of classification or b) personnel and facilities eligible to receive clearances, are strongly encouraged to submit information regarding their capabilities in relation to the program description.

SUBMISSION FORMAT

Submissions must be written in English. Submissions should be formatted for printing on 8-1/2 by 11-inch paper with a font size not smaller than 12-point in Microsoft Word of Adobe PDF format.

Font sizes of 8-10 point may be used for figures, tables, and charts. Submissions containing proprietary data should have the cover page and each page containing proprietary data marked appropriately.

Each capabilities statement should consist of the following sections:

Cover Page (1 page)

• Organization

• Technical point of contact (name, address, phone and fax number, and email address)

• Administrative point of contact (name, address, phone and fax number, and email address)

• If applicable, security point of contact (name, address, phone and fax number, and email address)

• If applicable, sensitive compartmented information facility identification number (SCIF ID)

• Commercial and Government Entity (CAGE) code

Description of Capabilities (limited to 4 pages)

• Personnel: Provide a list of current personnel with financial intelligence, economics, and graph algorithm development experience, their clearances (if any), and a narrative description of their knowledge, skills, and abilities relevant to the aforementioned experience.

• Facilities: Provide a description of your facilities and assets available. If facilities have been approved for classified storage, processing, and discussion, indicate the level of classification. Describe any available contingencies for the expansion or upgrade of your secure facilities, including spaces that are built to specification, but are not accredited.

• Organizational Experience: Describe previous accomplishments or ongoing work in this research area, including identification of any Government sponsors. Descriptions should include the Agency/Office, Program Name, and Program Manager.

SUBMISSION INSTRUCTIONS

Depending on the nature of the information to be provided, responses may be classified or unclassified. All unclassified responses must be submitted to A3ML@darpa.mil. Do NOT submit any classified information to A3ML@darpa.mil. All classified submissions must be coordinated with DARPA via UNCLASSIFIED email A3ML@darpa.mil to request instructions on format and transmission. Classification inquiries may also be directed to the A3ML@darpa.mil UNCLASSIFIED email. DARPA will accept submission until 5:00PM ET March 10, 2025.

NOTE: This Special Notice does not constitute a formal solicitation for proposals or a formal Request for Information (RFI). This notice is issued solely for information and program planning purposes.

DARPA will not provide reimbursement for costs incurred to participate in this Proposers Day event nor submission of a capabilities statement. Interested parties to this notice are cautioned that nothing herein obligates DARPA to issue a solicitation.

mailto:A3ML@darpa.mil mailto:A3ML@darpa.mil mailto:A3ML@darpa.mil mailto:A3ML@darpa.mil