Neil Bennett

Neil Bennett is a former Counter Terrorism Detective based at New Scotland Yard, UK. He has led complex counter terrorism and terrorist finance investigations, both nationally and internationally over a period of two decades.

As a manager in the UK National Terrorist Financial Investigation Unit (NTFIU), he was responsible for management of terrorist finance investigations, public / private partnership initiatives, intelligence development and training. As the national lead for UK terrorist finance training, including the design of the UKs first fully accredited terrorist finance course, he led on behalf of UK Government, overseas CFT capacity building. Trained as an International Evaluator on behalf of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), he supported UK policy development in both financial investigation and protecting the charity sector.

Neil was seconded to UK Ministry of Defence to establish a cross-government capability, which included the design and use of financial disruption strategies in areas of conflict. He was also Chair of the international defence 'Threat Finance' working group.

He has designed, delivered and evaluated a wide range of financial investigation training, staff mentoring, design and implementation of national curricula and capacity building on behalf of UK, European Union, United Nations and a wide range of organisations - focused on the use of different aspects of developing strategies relating to increasing the effectiveness of financial investigation and mitigating the impact of illicit financial flows. He has supported RUSI since 2017 in the delivery of IWT 'Follow the Money' projects across East Africa as well as other work streams.

Neil also serves as Vice Chair of the Local Governing Body at Esher High School, supporting improvement in educational outcomes for young people.

His career combines deep operational insight with global experience, offering a pragmatic, collaborative approach to tackling financial crime and terrorism finance.