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All Too Familiar ™

An Anti-money Laundering / Economic Crime Training Film

Is trust enough? All Too Familiar is a high-quality educational training film created by ICAEW in collaboration with HMRC which explores the degree of trust still placed in personal and professional relationships and whether enough scepticism is being used in the fight against economic crime.

How to watch Access case studies

Watch the trailer

All Too Familiar trailer All Too Familiar is ICAEW's third training film. It runs for 16 minutes and was created by ICAEW and HMRC.

Learning beyond standard textbooks

As the film tells the story of the ailing Trivena restaurant chain, viewers see that even longstanding clients can change how they generate their income, and how trust in the relationship might lead to a lack of professional scepticism, allowing potential red flags to be overlooked or dismissed.
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Risk management and red flags

Identify how and when to disengage from a client, and know a firm’s professional responsibilities when engaging with law enforcement, appropriate levels of customer due diligence and risk assessments for client relationships.

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Technical skills

Develop skills to identify potential money laundering red flags, mitigate the risks of money laundering by designing effective procedures and learning how to prepare good-quality suspicious activity reports.

The film improves people's perception of how important anti-money laundering (AML) requirements are. It's helped bring it up their priorities list.

Rachel Pugh, Client Director and Money Laundering Reporting Officer, Seymour Taylor

Key themes and learning points

Some of the real-life issues brought out during the firm’s fictional journey showcase:

  • the importance of challenging mindsets and provoking discussion on the need for greater professional scepticism, this time to help reduce the risk of economic crime, and in particular, money laundering;
  • the devastating impact of money laundering and how it allows the proceeds of crime to be washed through legitimate bank accounts or businesses and funds other serious crimes such as modern slavery, drug trafficking, fraud, corruption, and terrorism; 
  • why accountancy firms need to be more aware of how they might inadvertently assist economic crime by providing services to businesses that are laundering money or engaged in other illegal activity; and
  • themes for discussion, such as whether familiarity has clouded the firm’s judgement, how and when to disengage from a client and a firm’s professional responsibilities when engaging with law enforcement. It also examines the appropriate levels of customer due diligence (CDD) and risk assessments for client relationships.

How to watch

ICAEW and HMRC are working together to tackle economic crime. To support this work, this training film, All Too Familiar, has been made available to all ICAEW and HMRC-supervised firms without charge. The film is supported by resources to aid the delivery of training and workshops to ensure staff are guided on the importance of being vigilant and how to mitigate the risks of money laundering.

Film reel

Film synopsis

The synopsis gives you a glimpse of what the film is about and the kinds of challenges that money laundering reporting officers (MLROs) and their teams face when proper AML checks aren’t carried out, even with longstanding relationships.

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Film reel

Who should watch All Too Familiar?

All Too Familiar is a useful training tool for those working to prevent money laundering and economic crime issues.

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All Too Familiar training resources

To accompany the 16-minute film, ICAEW has created training resources to facilitate your learning session, including:

  • a Facilitator’s Guide with questions to prompt discussion about scenes from the film to help accountants and staff identify red flags, learn how to mitigate the risks of money laundering by designing effective procedures and how to prepare good quality suspicious activity reports (SARs); and
  • a Who's Who Character Guide as a useful visual reference to the characters in the film.

I presume someone’s checked out the new partner…

Robyn Bright, Partner, Nickel Turner LLP (accounting firm for Alex Murati of Trivena)

Further information about All Too Familiar

ICAEW’s training films have been used by firms and companies all around the world to support their in-house training and business development programmes.

All Too Familiar is the third training film in our series of educational film dramas, produced by ICAEW and HMRC, and written by Duncan Wiggetts, ICAEW’s Chief Officer for Professional Standards.

All Too Familiar was filmed at Chartered Accountants’ Hall in London and produced in collaboration with award-winning production company, Area 17. It features performances from film and television actors well known for their roles in Coronation Street, Emmerdale, Heartbeat, Brookside, Before We Die, Messiah and Innocent.

Awards and recognition

What are people saying about All Too Familiar

Case studies

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