Nick Ridley

Dr Nick Ridley is a senior lecturer in Policing and Security. He was a criminal intelligence analyst for just over 22 years, firstly at the Metropolitan Police, New Scotland Yard, working in various departments including Special Branch and the Anti Terrorist Branch, and then at Europol, the EU law enforcement agency in The Hague. At both Scotland Yard and Europol he specialised in organised crime from south east Europe, financial crime and financing of terrorism. At Europol he was attached to Anti Terrorist Unit where he was responsible for the operational analysis of financing of terrorism. In 2002 he was seconded to the FBI headquarters Washington, engaged on analysis on financing of terrorism.

After 11 years at Europol, he took up a short term position as associate professor at the Universita Cattolica in Milan, Italy, teaching courses in intelligence analysis, international relations and terrorism to postgraduate students in Masters and PhD courses. He then joined London Metropolitan University.

Nick holds a first degree in History from the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, a Diploma in International Economic Relations from the Economics Faculty University of Budapest, Hungary and a PhD from the University of Southampton and another PhD from London Metropolitan University. His doctorate thesis concerned Financial Crime and money laundering in Eastern Europe in the pre and post communist eras, and the role of the central banks. He is on the editorial advisory board of the Journal of Money Laundering Control (published by the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies) He also holds qualifications in French and Serbian from the London Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

He has been a visiting lecturer on the International Masters course in Transnational Organised Crime at the University of Teramo, Italy, and has lectured in anti terrorism on Turkish Army training courses at the NATO Centre of Excellence DAT, in Ankara. In 2007 he was a holder of a Research Fellowship from the Airey Neave Trust researching an aspect of terrorist financing, and in mid 2008 was granted a second Research Fellowship in the area of financing of terrorism. He has also given expert witness testimony to a House of Lords Select Committee on EU law enforcement co-operation.