Kieran talks with Jennifer Shasky Calvery, Group Head of Financial Crime Risk at HSBC, a former Director of the Financial Crime Enforcement Network, or FinCEN, and former federal prosecutor. Drawing on her public and private sector experience, Jen details the challenges faced by financial institutions and government and how in partnership they can detect illicit funds and catch bad actors. Jen also talks with Kieran about HSBC’s recent partnership with Google AML AI and the promise...

Kieran talks with Daniel Stipano, partner at Davis Polk & Wardwell and a 30-year veteran of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, about the unfolding requirements of the Corporate Transparency and AML Acts and their impact on law enforcement, and financial as well as non-financial institutions. Dan also weighs in on the current court challenges to the CTA, particularly the recent Federal court ruling that declared it unconstitutional, what the Financial Crime Enforcement...

Kieran talks with ACAMS colleagues Justine Walker, head of global sanctions and AML risk, and Craig Timm, senior AML director, about the just released “ACAMS Global AFC Threats 2024.” Drawing on 788 in-depth interactions with anti-financial crime professionals that inform the report, Justine and Craig identify the top ten threats currently facing the global AFC community, including budget cuts at financial institutions, the rise of cyber-enabled crime, the fallout from global conflict, and...

Kieran talks with Grant Rabenn, Director, Financial Crimes Legal at Coinbase. Grant, a former federal prosecutor who handled some of the Department of Justice’s earliest crypto cases, discusses the promise of blockchain offerings, while acknowledging the industry’s need to work with regulators to stem their use in financial crime and money laundering. During their conversation, Grant also touches some of the typologies for the illicit use of crypto currency that Coinbase encounters and the...

Kieran talks with Zeke Faux, author of critically acclaimed “Number Go Up,” a comprehensive look at cryptocurrency, DeFi, and NFTs. Zeke, an investigative reporter for Bloomberg BusinessWeek and Bloomberg News, discusses the trek he undertook to understand the boom and sometimes bust of various blockchain offerings. It was a journey that included a New York harbor NFT “ApeFest,” time in the Philippines with erstwhile Axis Infinity gamers who lost everything, a visit to a hotel in Cambodia...

Kieran talks with Kenneth Rijock, a former Miami-based lawyer who spent a decade as a bag man for drug-traffickers, investing their cash in accounts in the Caribbean and other offshore secrecy havens. Ken describes some of the classic methods he used for laundering money and how law enforcement ultimately caught up with him. Following a prison term, Ken reinvented himself as an anti-money laundering advisor to law enforcement and subsequently the private sector. His story is also told in...

Kieran talks with Carly Yoost, CEO and founder of the Child Rescue Coalition, which has created technology that enables law enforcement to identify instances of online child exploitation and locate its perpetrators. During their discussion, Carly details the scope of online child exploitation and how the Coalition provides tools and training to law enforcement in 98 countries that has led to the arrest of over 14,700 child predators.

Kieran talks with James Barnacle, Chief of the Financial Crimes Section, Criminal Investigative Division of the FBI, and Christopher Soyez, Assistant Section Chief. Jim and Chris discuss how the FBI works to recover the proceeds of scams on behalf of victims. They credit banks’ suspicious activity reports with being the primary catalyst for the bureau’s successful investigations into COVID-19 related scams, while also questioning a rising reluctance within the industry to aid customers in...

Kieran talks with Kenneth A. Blanco, Chief Compliance Officer for the Financial Crimes Unit at Citigroup, who is also a former Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) director and before that held several senior roles within the U.S. Department of Justice. Ken and Kieran discuss the challenges of being FinCEN’s chief during the COVID-19 epidemic and his perspective on the Anti-Money Laundering and Corporate Transparency Acts created and passed during his tenure. Having now served...

Kieran talks with Seoyoung Kim, Associate Professor of Finance, Department Chair, at Santa Clara University, about the promise and possible perils of decentralized finance. They discuss the recent implosion of several cryptocurrency exchanges and stablecoin minters and the great legal and judicial debate now raging over the regulation of digital assets. In detailing some of the regulatory definitional claims now being adjudicated in U.S. courts, Seoyoung argues that the contested offerings...

Kieran talks with Rick Small, Director Financial Crimes Program, at Truist, Dan Soto, Chief Compliance Officer, Ally Financial, and John Byrne, Executive Vice President, AML RightSource, about what’s been achieved in the past 40 years in the fight against financial crime and what challenges lay ahead. In anticipation of receiving the “ACAMS Lifetime Achievement Award” at The Assembly in Las Vegas in October, Rick, Dan, and John discuss the successes and shortcomings of past Bank Secrecy Act...

Kieran talks with Willem Schudel, Head of Department, Financial Crime Supervision (AML/TF) at the Central Bank of the Netherlands, live from The Assembly Europe, ACAMS’ annual conference, held this year in Dublin. Willem discusses the Dutch Central Bank’s preparations for the coming of the European Union’s Anti-Money Laundering Authority, or AMLA, and the bank’s latest initiatives with regulated entities, including expectations they adopt technology that will identify criminal activity and...

Kieran talks with Sarah Paquet, Director and CEO of the Financial Transaction Reports Analysis Centre, FINTRAC, live from ACAMS’ 27th annual moneylaundering.com conference in Hollywood, Florida. Sarah discusses FINTRAC’s new role handling sanctions intelligence, managing the revolution in financial technology, and the financial intelligence unit’s ongoing commitment to expand and further internationalize Canada’s anti-financial crime public-private partnerships. While detailing the initial...

Kieran talks with Steve Schindler and Katie Wilson-Milne, partners at New York litigation and art law boutique Schindler Cohen & Hochman LLP about the state of financial crime in the global antiquities and art world. Charting some of the civil and criminal actions that have resulted in a recent wave of repatriations of artworks and antiquities from the world’s major museums, noted galleries and private collections, Steve and Katie also discuss the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network’s...

Kieran talks with Tristram Hicks, co-author with Nicholas Gilmour of “The War on Dirty Money,” an examination of the promise and short-comings of the current costly global effort to combat financial crime. Drawing on his years as a New Scotland Yard detective superintendent and his role as an international criminal justice advisor on the operational effectiveness of anti-money laundering regimes, Tristram discusses why current anti-financial crime efforts are inadequate and how they can be...

Kieran talks with David Lewis, executive secretary of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) from 2015 to 2022, about the FATF’s recent plenary that gray listed South Africa and Nigeria, formally suspended Russia from membership, and criticized governments throughout the world for lax oversight of cryptocurrency businesses. Currently head of global AML at Kroll, David also weighs in on the United Kingdom’s and European Union’s latest AML efforts and shares his hope for greater transparency...

Kieran talks with Oliver Bullough, award winning reporter for The Guardian, about his latest book, “Butler to the World: How Britain Became the Servant of Tycoons, Tax Dodgers, Kleptocrats and Criminals.” During their conversation, Oliver details how Britain and its territories became a favored facilitator for many of the world’s kleptocrats, having transformed a financial system that once served the country’s global empire into one adept at “investing” illicit funds and serving the whims...

Kieran talks with Dan Stipano, partner at Davis Polk, and Jamal El-Hindi, Counsel at Clifford Chance, about the Financial Crime Enforcement Network’s far reaching new rules for creating a U.S. beneficial ownership information (BOI) database for regulators and law enforcement, including who will be required to file personal identifying information and who will not have access to the registry. Mandated by Congress to be operational by January 2024, Dan and Jamal also detail some of the...

Kieran talks with Jonathan Dupont, a financial intelligence investigator for Western Union, and Tiffany Polyak, AFC Associate at ACAMS, about the growth in online sexual exploitation of children and the related rise in child sexual abuse materials on the Internet. In exposing the scope of the online exploitation, Jonathan and Tiffany point to the more than 100 million reports of child sexual abuse material (CSAM) in Europe and the United States in 2021, with 19,000 victims being identified...

Kieran talks with Bryan Smith, chief of the FBI’s Cybercriminal Section and a 20-year bureau veteran, about the growing threat of cybercrime to both individuals and large corporations. Bryan discusses the destruction caused by cyber hacking, identity theft and old fashion fraud and he shares some of the successes the FBI has had in recovering stolen funds – whether in fiat currencies or crypto. While concerned about future cybercrime threats from criminals who are always innovating, Bryan...

Kieran talks with Nathan Lynch, author of 'The Lucky Laundry' - an expose of how Australia became the conduit for billons of dollars in laundered funds from the proceeds of drug trafficking, corruption, the sexual exploitation of children and other heinous crimes committed by transnational criminal organizations. Nathan, Manager of Thomson Reuters Regulatory Intelligence, Asia-Pacific, details how the 'Lucky Country' (as Australians view their homeland) became the 'Lucky Laundry'...

Kieran talks with ACAMS colleague Joby Carpenter about the current tumult in the digital asset world, including plummeting cryptocurrency prices, digital value’s exploitation by money launderers, the threat from cyberhackers, and the rise in crypto-related fraud schemes. A global subject matter expert on cryptocurrency, Joby draws on 18 years of experience in strategic and risk analysis roles across the UK government, intelligence and regulatory community and concludes that there is a...

Kieran talks with Daniel Thelesklaf, Project Director for Finance Against Slavery and Trafficking (FAST) at the United Nations University Centre for Policy Research about the effort to protect refugees fleeing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine from human trafficking. While many governments, organizations and individuals are offering support for refugees that includes information, food, shelter and job placements, “there are traffickers waiting at the borders” with job and other offers that...

Kieran talks with Ilze Znotina about the challenges Latvia has faced over the past four years she has been head of the Financial Intelligence Unit, including enforcing sanctions against Russia following its invasion of Ukraine. “Baltic states have suffered… a very similar situation that Ukraine is suffering right now, [but] thankfully not in recent years,” Ilze says, adding that the region is for that reason united in trying to make the sanctions work. “[Ukraine] fights for themselves and...