The Corporation is organized exclusively for charitable and educational purposes within the meaning of Section 501(c)(3) of the US Internal Revenue Code. Its business includes, but is not limited to, researching, training and assisting developing countries to recover as much as possible of the billions of euros lost through government corruption each year.
We are guided by the conviction that combating corruption is the single most important action that can be taken to reduce bloodshed, poverty, disease and environmental degradation across the planet.
Our programs include semester long university courses, overseas workshops and training for government law enforcement officials, and confidential assistance to law enforcement agencies on cross-border corruption and money laundering cases.
Our international training sessions are usually tailored to specific countries using research on the countries’ own laws to create a simulated case involving 60 to 70 pieces of evidence that participants investigate over a five-day period. You cannot learn to build a car engine, fly an airplane or fight corruption with college-type lectures. You must get experience by on-the-job training or working through simulations. Our training is state-of-the-art, but we are limited by the fact that we can only train up to 25 people at a time with in-country programs. Therefore, we are adding two more training platforms for those countries and organizations that have larger needs. This brings our number of training options to three:
- Standard in-class, computer based model where participants download 60-70 pieces of evidence and work through a simulated exercise to identify instances of corruption, trace money flows, and recover the stolen assets with the aid of facilitators. The training is usually delivered by instructors on-site in the host country, using host country laws and procedures;
- Internet based model where participants work through a simulated case online with the aid of on-line facilitators (video-taped lectures and PowerPoints are studied at strategic points); and
- Video-game based model in which the entire exercise is completed through a fully-animated, interactive simulation. In the game, participants will be taught investigative techniques and procedures, then challenged to apply them properly to advance through the case. At the end of the simulation, users will be scored on their use of investigative techniques, the charges they are able to prove, and the assets they are able to recover.
The standard model has been used at George Washington University Law School for 14 years, and in numerous overseas training sessions for the past 16 years. The internet model was developed for the World Bank for use by the 135 member countries of the International Corruption Hunters Alliance and was first deployed in 2015. We are seeking funding to create the video-game model and to make it available for customizing for individual countries.
The video game model will allow the setting, language, and legal content to be rapidly customized for each participant country or organization. Even the plot of the game can be customized to focus on specific types of corruption and money laundering such as drug money trafficking, police corruption, or political corruption. On average, the game will take around 20 hours for a participant to complete; during which users will learn and apply a variety of real-world investigative techniques from surveillance to financial document analysis to Mutual Legal Assistance requests. The game enables participants to use any of these investigative techniques at any point in the game – but only the right choices will uncover new leads. This broad range of choice combined with scoring, means that critical thinking and problem solving are emphasized over “guess and check”. Additionally the scoring creates a sense of excitement and competition while allowing training administrators to verify learning.
People around the world are spending 3 billion hours a week playing video games for fun, and armies and airlines have been using video simulations for training for years. Game-based learning” is one of the best tools to for continuing education in the 21st-century. RGI wants to utilize this technology to make state-of-the-art training available to every country that wants better governance and needs to improve its skills in the fight against corruption and money laundering.